“I used to shun my companion” *

I used to shun my companion
if his religion was not like mine;
but now my heart accepts every form.
It is a pasturage for gazelles, a monastery for monks,
a temple of idols, a Ka’ba for the pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah, the holy book of the Qur’an.
Love alone is my religion, and whichever way
its horses turn, that is my faith and creed.

* By an anonymous medieval Arabic poet