This is a book of aphorisms written by Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309), here called Ibn Atallah, the third sheikh of the Shadhili Sufi order. He was born and grew up in Alexandria, then lived and died in Cairo. Ibn Atallah is well known for compressing large thoughts into a small space. The shape of the thought is smooth, small, dense, and hard. He chose the form of aphorisms to express himself because he wanted above all to spread the word of what he believed in, and indeed, many of these statements could be likened to a pebble that one might carry in one's pocket.

Writings of Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau are here brought into a common format by paraphrasing the text into metered lines (iambic pentameter); the lines are arranged to create three-line stanzas in a single unified master document. The result is a long poem in which the successive lines are bound rhythmically but not always by meaning. In each stanza the first line is from Thoreau, the second line from Gandhi, and the third line from King, as shown here: I hold this saying close beside my heart: I am not a visionary person; You cannot deny we face a crisis...