“If we rated greatness by the influence of the great, we will say Muhammad is the greatest of the great in history”
“You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one. Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: Produce something like it ‽”
“لقد حدد رسول الإسلام الغاية الأولى من بعثته، والمنهاج المبين في دعوته بقوله إنما بعثت لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق”
“هنگامى كه فلان آخوند روى منبر براى اثبات ارج بى همتاى آيه هاى قرآن از فرويد و ماركس مدد مى جويد؛ هنگامى كه دموكراسى و اسلام دو كفه ى يك ترازو مى شوند؛ هنگامى كه نماز ورزش مى شود و طهارت نيز بهداشت و روزه به رژيم غذايى تقليل مى يابد، ما شمه اى از مبتذل ترين صورت هاى غربزدگى را مى بينيم.”
“The Islamic intellectual tradition has usually not seen a dichotomy between intellect and intuition but has created a hierarchy of knowledge and methods of attaining knowledge according to which degrees of both intellection and intuition become harmonized in an order encompassing all the means available to man to know, from sensual knowledge an reason to intellection and inner version or the knowledge of the heart.”
“In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God s holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.”
“The great point in Christianity is the search for an independent content for spiritual life which, according to the insights of its founder, could be elevated, not by the forces of a world external to the soul of man, but by the revelation of a new world within his soul. Islam fully agrees with this insight and supplements it by the further insight that the illumination of the new world thus revealed is not something foreign to the world of matter but permeates it through and through. Thus the affirmation of spirit sought by Christianity would come not by the renunciation of external forces which are already permeated by the illumination of spirit, but by a proper adjustment of man s relation to these forces in view of the light received from the world within.”
“There is nothing in our book, the Qur an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
“Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images, the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire: that is MUHAMMAD. As regards all the standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask IS THERE ANY MAN GREATER THAN HE?”
“America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all together, irrespective of their color.”
“Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.”
“أعتقد أن شيئاً مشابهاً يحدث مع كل من يمتلك مبدأ وقضية، يأتي من يساومه عليها. ربما يكون ذلك جزءاً من طبيعة الامتحان الذي لابد منه.”
“لقد اوسع الحج نطاق تفكيري وفتح بصيرتي فرأيت في أسبوعين ما لم أره في تسع وثلاثين سنة.”
“Religion is never more tested than when our emotions are ablaze. At such a time, the timeless grandeur of the Law and its ethics stand at our mercy.”
“لم يستبدل الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم حباً بحب , بل أضاف حباً إلى حب”
“It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of secual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values. The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life.”
“A isha asked him: Does one come to Paradise only by the mercy of Allah? He repeated three times over: No one comes to Paradise except by the mercy of Allah! Not even you. Messenger of Allah? she asked. Not even I, unless Allah enfolds me in His mercy.”