Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook
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Marble inlay tile from the Red Fort in Delhi, built by Shah Jahan. Click for larger image.
Sweetness & Light

In Sufi poetry, the sweetness of sugar and candy reflects the sweetness of communion with God, and the deceptive nature of the physical world.

Though on its surface this world is sweet as sugar,
There is only suffering in anything but the love of God.
I am a mine of candy, a sugar plantation;
I am the sugar cane and the sugar eater.
I have found this honey of honeys.
Let this hive of mine be given away.
Sweet are candy and sugar,
honey and the buffalo's milk;
yea, sweet are all those,
but sweeter by far is God.