"There is, however, one thing that is absolutely clear: the organ that is dearest to Maulana is the heart, dil. He sings of it frequently in tender, moving verses, often using the word dil as a recurring rhyme word, and it would be a worthwhile enterprise to collect all the lines in which he describes this heart, now as a timid little darling, now as a being of such power that it can squeeze the heavens like a kerchief, now crying to be rocked in its cradle, now encompassing within itself heaven and earth and their very Creator.
" 'His love took my painful heart in its palm and smelled it:
If this heart is not nice, how can it be a nosegay for Him?'
"The heart is a house and a garden, it is a mosque, even the masjid al-aqsa, the 'farthest mosque' in Jerusalem; it is the Kaaba, the house of God, and it is also the Throne of God on which He seated himself. The little shivering heart, likened to a fish in the frying pan, is also a window through which one can see the Beloved, or it is a glass bottle inhabited by the beloved fairy, the dulcis hospes animae, the 'sweet guest of the soul,' as medieval Christian writers used to call the Divine indwelling in the heart."
