A Garden Among the Flames

by Ibn 'Arabi

O Marvel,
a garden among the flames!

My heart can take on 
any form: 
a meadow for gazelles, 
a cloister for monks,

For the idols, sacred ground, 
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim, 
the tables of the Torah, 
the scrolls of the Qur'án.

I profess the religion of love; 
wherever its caravan turns along the way, 
that is the belief, 
the faith I keep.

Ibn ʿArabī was an Arab Andalusian Sufi mystic and philosopher. From Poem 11 of the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, translation by Michael A. Sells.

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