Ishq is the Sufi word for a love so total that the lover is dissolved in the beloved — a consuming fire that the mystics of Islam pursued as the direct path to God. Rumi's reed flute crying for the reed bed is ishq's most famous image: separation as the precondition for the deepest longing, and longing as the very substance of the journey. This domain examines ishq as spiritual practice and as a lens on the depths of human love.
Each step builds on the last.