"You go back to the medieval mystical period and you find Islamic thinkers who say terribly beautiful things. There's a story told about Abu Ali of Sind, a famous mystic. He made his annual trip across the desert, which took days, to get his supplies in the markets on the other end of the desert. Then he walked all the way back, opened the packages that he bought and found that there were ants in his cardamom seeds. Immediately, he wrapped the ants back up in the cardamom seeds, walked back across the desert and returned the ants to their home. That's a different Islam. That's a poetic Islam. It comes right out of the heart of that religion."
- James Carse
