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Islamic Stories

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The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam

Written 1120 A.C.E.

I
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

II
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"

III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."

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Abu Mihjan Abu Mihjan stood in the cell, his head aching from a hang over. He moved restlessly and his chains clinked against each other. To him, they sounded like the bells the Persians put on their war elephants, and he winced at the memory. The sound they made as they stamped the life from his friends echoed in his memory and had him turning and gagging, his wine sour stomach rebelling. He breathed deeply to settle his stomach, just to sneeze from the dust of his cell. His head throbbed and he groaned.

Shuffling, the chains on his ankles restricting his movements, he moved to the small window of his cell. The sun felt good on his face; sharp contrast to his body, still in the cold shadow of the cell.

Looking out from the cellar of the palace at Qadisiyya, placed high on a hill and near the edge of the city, he watched as the battle raged so close - yet so far.

He leaned his broad shoulder against the rough mud wall and a tear of sorrow slowly trickled down his cheek. Here he was, chained and jailed, while his companions fought and died. It was more than any man should be made to bear.

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Finding the Prophet I spent a lot of time looking at art the year before I became a Muslim. Completing a degree in Philosophy and Fine Arts, I sat for hours in darkened classrooms where my professors projected pictures of great works of Western art on the wall. I worked in the archives for the Fine Arts department, preparing and cataloging slides. I gathered stacks of thick art history books every time I studied in the university library. I went to art museums in Toronto, Montreal and Chicago. That summer in Paris, “the summer I met Muslims” as I always think of it, I spent a whole day (the free day) each week in the Louvre.

What was I seeking in such an intense engagement with visual art? Perhaps some of the transcendence I felt as a child in the cool darkness of the Catholic church I loved. In high school, I had lost my natural faith in God, and rarely thought about religion after that. In college, philosophy had brought me from Plato, through Descartes only to end at Existentialism-a barren outcome. At least art was productive-there was a tangible result at the end of the process. But in the end, I found even the strongest reaction to a work of art isolating. Of course I felt some connection to the artist, appreciation for another human perspective. But each time the aesthetic response flared up, then died down, it left no basis for action.

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