Piousness and the path of love

by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir

English version by Vraje Abramian
Original Language Persian/Farsi

Piousness and the path of love
are two different roads.
Love is the fire that burns both belief
and non-belief.
Those who practice Love have neither
religion nor caste.

-- from Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, Translated by Vraje Abramian

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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

I love the way this poem expresses the radical realization that Sufis and all true mystics express: There is a point when you become so utterly consumed by the Divine One, by the fire of Love, that "belief and non-belief" disappear. All notions of God disappear in the blazing experience of God. Who then is pious? Who then has a place in society? Where are your boundaries that you can say, 'I am this and not that'? The Beloved gathers you up and lays you out upon the whole earth...








Piousness and the