"lab (P) Lite. lips. In the poetic imagery of the Sufis, the 'lips' of the divine Beloved are associated with the divine creative power, also called the Kalam Allah (Speech of God) and the Nafas al-Rahman (Breath of the Merciful). Just as speech and breath proceed from the lips, so the creative Power comes from the 'lips' of God. Maghribi writes:

Your lips (lab) blew upon a world
cold and without life —
A Breath from which it forthwith sprang to life.
Maghribi, in FN11 p. 85; cf. in SSE1 p. 115

Because intellectual knowledge and wisdom cannot locate the source from which life comes into the universe, 'Attar was prompted to write:

In describing her lips (lab),
knowledge is ignorance;
In portraying her face,
wisdom is insane.
'Attar, in FN11 p. 85

But it is the 'lips' of God that mobilize the lovers of God. Hence Sana'i says:

The souls of all the lovers
are mobilized before Your lips (lab);
With You, they are all and everything:
devoid of Your lips (lab), they are nothing.
Sana'i, in FN11 p.85; cf. in SSE1 p.115

To experience the divine creative power is to be a sweet pleasure so perfect that all attachments to the world automatically fade away. Thus, the 'lips' from which that 'Speech' or that 'Breath' proceed are often called, in Sufi poetry, sugary lips (lab-I shakarin) or sweet lips (lab-I shirin). Similarly, references to the Beloved's mouth (dahan), His sugary mouth or His sweet mouth, are associated with the inner, divine creative Power. Sana'i says that those 'sweet lips' hold the Water of Life:

The Water of Life
lies in your sweet lips (labi-i shirin);
How can I live
without your sweet lips (lab-I shirin)?
Sana'i, in FN11 p. 86, in SSE1 p. 117

See also: dahan, Mouth of God.

FFNI: Farhang-I Nurbakhsh: Istilahat-I Tasawwuf, 15 vol., Javad Nurbakhsh
SSEI: Sufi Symbolism: The Nurbakhsh Encyclopedia of Sufi Terminology, 15 vols., Javad Nurbakhsh, tr. Terry Graham et al.