My heart wears all forms

by Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

English version by Ivan M. Granger
Original Language Arabic

My heart wears all forms:

For gazelles it is an open field,
for monks a cloister.

     It is a temple for idols,
     and for pilgrims the Ka'ba.

          It is the Torah's tablets
          and the pages of the Quran.

Love is the faith I follow.

Whichever path Love's caravan takes,
     that is my road and my religion.

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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

These lines from The Interpreter of Desires are probably Ibn ‘Arabi's most famous. The entire work is a multi-layered love poem that, like The Song of Solomon in the Bible, can be read as an exploration of the soul's yearning for God. Ibn ‘Arabi's poem tells of a pilgrimage to Mecca in which he meets a beautiful young woman named Nizham (Harmony). The ardor awakened by this encounter inspires a quest for the eternal harmony she embodies. Her earthly beauty and grace awakens a yearning for the true Beloved, for God.

My heart wears all forms.

The heart, in this sense, is not just how we feel love, it is the center of our awareness. It is the mirror that reflects whatever we focus on. In other words, the heart, the core of awareness, doesn't just feel, it takes on the form of what we love. This is why we ultimately become what we love or fixate on, for good and for bad.

When we fall silent, perhaps stunned into silence through a radical encounter with beauty and harmony, we find everything reflected within the heart. Every person. Every creature. Every object. Every thought. We find all of existence reflected within the heart.

And each reflection is recognized as an expression of the Beloved. While we ourselves become formless.

For gazelles it is an open field,
for monks a cloister.

It is a temple for idols,
and for pilgrims the Ka'ba.

It is the Torah's tablets
and the pages of the Quran.


Can such an awakened heart then reject any school of awakening?

Love is the faith I follow.

Whichever path Love's caravan takes,
that is my road and my religion.


But, of course, one must understand what real religion is. It is not stone walls or steeples. It is not crosses or crescents. It is neither creeds nor rituals nor books. Though any one of these, properly approached, can open the door.

Like all true masters, Ibn 'Arabi reminds us that the true religion is nothing less than Love.

This is an all-embracing vision of reality in which the heart has grown wide enough to recognize everyone and everything at rest within itself. An overwhelming, blissful experience of wholeness, interconnectedness, and joy. Words fail, but that pulse of the universal life does not.

That is what religion is. That is the road.



Recommended Books: Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality) The Mystics of Islam Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn 'Arabi and New Poems Perfect Harmony: (Calligrapher's Notebooks)
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My heart wears all