Taking Meaning - Living Islam / Living Islam Sat, 22 Mar 2025 15:02:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 The Eating Place: A Short Story /intellect-and-heart-the-eating-place-a-short-story/ Wed, 16 Sep 2015 03:49:58 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1164 Carnelian Lane was a dead end street. At the very end of the road, nestled among giant shade trees and a lovely fountain which sang its tune refreshingly, there was a very fine restaurant. As the phrase suggests, this dead end street was somewhat dead: not in the sense of life and death but rather…

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]]> Rumi’s Revolution: Mawlana’s First Night of Dhikr-e Samâ’, Adapted from The Forty Rules of Love /rumis-revolution-mawlanas-first-night-of-dhikr-e-sama-adapted-from-the-forty-rules-of-love/ Fri, 28 Aug 2015 19:29:58 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1136 The following account of Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi’s first night of dhikr-e samâ’ has been adapted from the novel “The Forty Rules of Love”, by Turkish author Elif Shafak. There are those who say that dancing is sacrilege. They think Allah gave us music—not only the music we make with our voices and instruments but the…

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]]> Islam Image Quotes: Spiritual Excellences /islam-image-quotes-iq4-spiritual-excellences/ Thu, 13 Aug 2015 01:16:11 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1126 From the Islam Image Quotes series: Islamic Wisdom, Sayings and Quotes Rest assured that abstract knowledge cannot be held with the hand. For example, a man is in the wilderness. He has ten lethal swords together with other weapons and he is brave and bellicose. A huge and ferocious lion attacks him. Now what is…

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]]> Islam Image Quotes: Earthly Challenges /islam-image-quotes-iq2-earthly-challenges/ Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:33:49 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1115 From the Islam Image Quotes series: Islamic Wisdom, Sayings and Quotes “And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient.” (Al-Qur’an 2:155) “Or do you think that you will enter Paradise while such (trial) has not…

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]]> Islam Image Quotes-IQ2: Sincerity /islam-image-quotes-iq2-sincerity/ Sun, 09 Aug 2015 18:57:37 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1110 If I had to choose the one phrase out of all of Shaikh Husain’s “oft-repeated phrases” that I hear the most, it could be this one. Such a simple statement – in theory – but in practice… Whatever you do, do it sincerely. ~Shaikh Husain Ash-Shadhili Doing sincerely is never forcing. There is no compulsion…

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]]> Real-ization /real-ization/ /real-ization/#_comments Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:07:35 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=1020 Not long ago, it came up in conversation: “Saying that we have the ‘Qur’an and sunnah’ is very vague. It is a cliché with no real-ity.” Because saying is saying. The quest of every soul who has been guided to the path of Islam, whether real-ized or not, is real-izing. “What the Creator has intended…

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]]> /real-ization/feed/ 2 Missed Opportunities: On My Becoming Muslim /missed-opportunities-becoming-muslim/ /missed-opportunities-becoming-muslim/#_comments Tue, 10 Feb 2015 11:06:10 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=978 Al hamdulillāh [i], when Allah led me to the wellspring of Islam, I recognized the sweetness of its cool, refreshing water. Al hamdulillāh after much time spent wandering the desert of my inner life, I didn’t think: “Well, maybe there is a deeper, clearer pool over there somewhere.” A dear, Muslim friend and teacher whom…

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]]> /missed-opportunities-becoming-muslim/feed/ 2 Inspiration Plus Angle /inspiration-plus-angle-worthy-example/ /inspiration-plus-angle-worthy-example/#_comments Wed, 04 Feb 2015 10:54:40 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=965 He’s lost some weight, our boy. Earlier, I had been trying for some time to get him to drink – he doesn’t drink easily. I approached, as usual, head-on from the front – and then I remembered: “This is how I do it,” he said. “Watch.” Wisdom is like that: there’s a subtlety of angle,…

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]]> /inspiration-plus-angle-worthy-example/feed/ 2 Capture Your Beloved’s Heart, O Seeker /capture-beloveds-heart-o-seeker/ Sun, 01 Feb 2015 08:56:51 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=924 After recognizing the benefit of the companionship of a shaykh [i] who is connected to the Prophet (pbuh) by the transmission of his Light; a noble guide who lives by both sharī’ah [ii] and Truth – for the sincere murīd [iii] who hopes to arrive at the Divine Presence; the importance of being a companion…

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]]> Sufism and the Real Seeker: By Shaikh Husain Ash-Shadhili /definition-sufism-real-seeker-shaikh-husain-ad-darqawi/ Wed, 17 Dec 2014 17:13:42 +0000 http://takingmeaning.com/?p=760 Shaikh Husain is among those who aim for the essence. As long as I have had the honor of knowing this noble man – before he received his Shadhili-Darqawi idhn from Shaykh Fattah in 1998 (he also received idhn in the Rufa’iyyah and Chistiyyah tara’iq) – he has had the gift of weeding through details, the…

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