By embracing the talisman of Socrates, we satisfy our ever-present human curiosity, thirsting to speak and to hear in return for what is said. But in this exchange, we lose our way to the hidden, to the essence. We lose that truth which Zen philosophies say lies somewhere beyond words. Not because what we say is merely a shadow of what we haven’t said, a shadow of what our tongues have failed to articulate, but because speech itself conceals a secretive nature that transforms it into a riddle, or an enigma, at best, and into vulgarity, at worst. Therefore, by speaking, we not only commit a sin, but we never truly say what we want to say. This predicament does not stem from the intractability of words or the miraculous nature of expression, as some fools might assume, but is fundamentally a religious dilemma, one stemming from the very metaphysical nature of language. The danger of language arises precisely from this metaphysical nature.<\/p>\n
This explains why the divine command, “Read!”, also warranted a decisive response, to the point that the Prophet’s statement, “I cannot read!”, seemed blasphemous. This was interpreted as the Prophet’s ignorance of the secret of reading, but it should be understood as a reluctance to obey, a fear of the hidden truth, a dread of the prophetic destiny concealed behind the veil of reading. Sources tell us of a similar flight the Prophet experienced when he fled from the angel Gabriel to Khadija during his first encounter with prophethood, hiding his face in her embrace and crying, “Cover me! Cover me!” This flight is understandable, for we can find a parallel in the first experience of a new human being entering the realm of knowledge (what we call school in our modern language).<\/p>\n
This is why we understand why the divine command, “Read!”, also warranted such a decisive response. Ibrahim al-Koni’s work is a blend of imagination, emotions, and meanings, flowing in the form of letters and phrases that compel one to contemplate the creativity of this writer, who transcends the familiar in the realm of the read, understood, and woven into the fabric of short stories and novels. In his early pages, the writer transports us to a world of ideas that leap gracefully through his exquisite phrases and transparent meanings, capturing our inner selves, spreading a gentle literary ecstasy, and enriching the mind with thoughts that reach the level of the wondrously strange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These are literary texts and reflections of a spiritual and philosophical nature, drawing inspiration from heritage, myths, and existential questions, and blending wisdom and contemplation on humanity, nature, and the universe in a dense literary language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_cat":[905,899,921,834],"product_tag":[3600,1276,1359,1357],"class_list":["post-31934","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-world-literature","product_cat-prose-literature","product_cat-literary-texts","product_cat-philosophy","product_tag-faith","product_tag-myths","product_tag-philosophy","product_tag-religions","pa_book-author-ibrahim-al-koni","first","onbackorder","sale","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/31934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=31934"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=31934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}