## Metadata - Author: [[Elif Shafak]] - Full Title: The Forty Rules of Love - Category: #books ## Highlights - Instead of an outer-oriented jihad—defined as “the war against infidels” and carried out by many in those days just as in the present—Rumi stood up for an inner-oriented jihad where the aim was to struggle against and ultimately prevail over one’s ego, nafs. ([Location 329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=329)) - Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied. ([Location 1093](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=1093)) - Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. ([Location 1108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=1108)) - There are more fake gurus and false teachers in this world than the number of stars in the visible universe. Don’t confuse power-driven, self-centered people with true mentors. A genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self. True mentors are as transparent as glass. They let the Light of God pass through them.” ([Location 1294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=1294)) - Each time I say good-bye to a place I like, I feel like I am leaving a part of me behind. I guess whether we choose to travel as much as Marco Polo did or stay in the same spot from cradle to grave, life is a sequence of births and deaths. Moments are born and moments die. ([Location 1337](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=1337)) - Shams says the world is a huge cauldron and something big is cooking in it? We don’t know what yet. Everything we do, feel, or think is an ingredient in that mixture. We need to ask ourselves what we are adding to the cauldron. Are we adding resentments, animosities, anger, and violence? Or are we adding love and harmony? ([Location 2115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=2115)) - Is there a way to grasp what love means without becoming a lover first? Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all. ([Location 2753](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=2753)) - The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. ([Location 3075](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0030CVPO0&location=3075))