“Praise God, who pours His aid upon His beloved ones as a special allotment and reward, quenching their hearts from the drink of oneness with love and purity, revealing Himself to their inner hearts in glory and beauty, and gracing them with gifts of proximity in contemplation and union. I praise Him with the praise of one to whom He made Himself known. Then she knew and was blessed with His grace and confessed and acknowledged that this was beyond all thanks. I bear witness that there is no deity but God, alone without peer. This is the witness of one who roamed in the deserts of singularity and drowned in the ocean of oneness”
Aishah al-Baʿūniyya

Aishah al-Baʿūniyya (d. 1517) was one of the greatest woman scholars in Islamic history, as well a venerated Sufi teacher, author and poet. Born in Damascus in the second half of the fifteenth century, she authored several books on tassawuf in prose and poetry. Her books "The Four Principles of Sufism" and "Emanation of Grace," this class will draw from, present the spiritual wayfarer four essential aspects of inner life to be cultivated: repentance (tawbah), sincerity (Ikhlas), remembrance (dhikr), and love (mahabbah) in clear, simple and graceful writing.Throughout her teaching she cites the Quran, hadith of the Prophet, and numerous sayings from earlier Sufi masters. In our winter class we will study the principles Aishah outlines of a spiritual path that leads to ever closer proximity with God. It is rare to find a Sufi teacher who offers guidance in such a simple and eloquent manner, even rarer to find that teacher to be a woman held in highest esteem by her contemporary Muslim male counterparts.