Quote by Mahmud Shabistari: “In every atom of the universe, the divine name is hidden.”

The sacred is not confined to temples or sacred texts — it permeates all of physical reality, down to its smallest components. This is a mystical claim that the whole universe is a kind of continuous prayer or expression of the divine.

Mahmud Shabistari composed his Gulshan-i Raz around 1317 in Tabriz, a major cultural city under the Ilkhanate. Despite the Mongol conquest of Persia, Tabriz had become a cosmopolitan centre where Persian, Mongolian, and Chinese cultural elements intersected in remarkable ways.

Persian Sufi poet born around 1288 in Shabistan, Azerbaijan, whose Rose Garden of Mystery (Gulshan-i Raz) is one of the most influential texts in Sufi philosophy, exploring the nature of divine love, beauty, and the unity of existence in verse form.