This 2-line poem was extemporised by Ibn 'Arabi when he met Ibn Najjar, a well-known historian from Baghdad, who saw the Shaykh in Damascus.
O you who are perplexed by the disparity between what you know and what you long for,
may whatever part of you is [caught] between the contraries be brought to union!
If you do not savour the scents of the wind, you will not
discern the superiority of extracted musk over dung.
(cited in Ibn al-Dimyati, Mustafād min dhayl taʾrīkh Baghdād, p. 28)
