He Who Succumbs to Every Passion

Peace, one and all…

During this Ramadan, the theme of the self (the nafs) has come up again and again in my Quranic reading. As such, I wanted to share this short, yet powerful poem taken from al-Qushayri’s Risala. The author is unknown but the poem is very powerful:

The letter nun of [the word] hawan (‘humiliation’)
is stolen from [the word] hawa (‘desire’)

Therefore he who succumbs to
every passion is subject to humiliation.

May the hearts of the lovers be opened.