salām, welcome to you..

“Come, come, whoever you are;

wanderer, worshipper, lover of learning.

It does not matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, come, yet again come”

~ mevlāna jalāluddīn rūmi ~ (رحمة الله عليه)

Al Aqsa, The Dome of the Rock, Solomons temple, the axis mundi, meaning the navel of the world. the celestial and geographical pole; the meeting point of the four compasses, the connection point between the earth and the heavens. it is here where the Prophet ﷺ led 124 thousand Prophets in prayer. it is here where the Prophet ﷺ ascended beyond the earth and the seven heavens, where he was shown 18 thousand treasures of both the worlds, beyond the realms of nasut, jabarut, malakut, lahut, and stood in the presence of Allah at a distance of ‘two bows length’. it was from this journey which unlocked the light to the hadith-e-qudsi; ‎كُنتُ كَنزاً مخفياً - ‘i was a hidden treasure’. it was this journey that inspired the story of mevlana rumi & shams-e-tabrez. it was this journey which turned qadi yunus into the dervish, yunus emre, who for forty years collected dry firewood up and down the mountains and valleys. it was this journey that drowned mansur al-hallaj in the oceans of fana uttering “ana-al haq”. it was this journey that made rabia al adawiyya run through the streets of basra with a pot of fire in one hand to burn down the rewards of paradise, and a bucket of water in the other to extinguish the fires of hell. it was from this journey of union and separation from which the masnavi was born. it was from this journey that fana - annihilation, and baqa - eternal, emerged into a reality.