As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, the Islamic mystics who live islam (submission), iman (faith) and ishan (awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully").

The Wahhabi hate them, of course, which constitutes an endorsement in my books. The great poet Rumi was a Sufi, and so were many other figures of religious and cultural significance. I've come to appreciate the Sufis for their poetry, their humour, and their body of wisdom. Every Shabbat, therefore, I will be sharing some of that via my Blog. Today's quote comes from Reshad Feild:

"We must always be in a state of Preparation. Preparation is the art of staying awake. If you are awake, then one day you may see into the real world. You cannot expect to come into that world if you walk around like a sleepwalker in a dream. You cannot wake up by reading books that tell you: you are asleep. You may not even wake up just because a teacher tells you that you are asleep. You can only wake up if you want to, and so begin to work on yourself to cut away all the rubbish in order to come upon the nature of who and what you are."