Ehsan’s Reviews > The Forty Rules of Love > Status Update

“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself
what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western.…
Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and
simple.
“Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire!
The universe turns differently when fire loves water.

“Did you know that of the five prayers a Muslim is
supposed to perform every day, the one in the morning is said to be the most sacred but also the most
testing?”
“And why is that?”
“I guess it’s because it wakes us up from dreams, and we don’t like that. We prefer to keep sleeping.
That’s why there is a line in the morning call that doesn’t exist in the others. It says, ‘Prayer is better than
sleep.’ ”

For despite what some people say, love is not a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away. In many ways the twenty-first century is not that different from the thirteenth century. Both will be recorded in history as times of unprecedented religious clashes, cultural misunderstandings, and a general sense of insecurity and fear of the Other. At times like these, the need for love is greater than ever.