“Allah exalts whom he wills!”
“People accuse me of having interiorized a feeling of racial inferiority, so that I attack my own culture out of self-hatred, because I want to be white. This is a tiresome argument. Tell me, is freedom then only for white people? Is it self-love to adhere to my ancestors traditions and mutilate my daughters? To agree to be humiliated and powerless? To watch passively as my countrymen abuse women and slaughter each other in pointless disputes? When I came to a new culture, where I saw for the first time that human relations could be different, would it have been self-love to see that as a foreign cult, which Muslims are forbidden to practice?”
“Happy will be those who take a lesson and warning from the mistakes and misfortunes of others and seek, nevertheless, to adopt the good they offer. Wisdom, wherever he finds it, it s a believer s goal, because he is more worthy of it than anyone else.”
“وتأمل أحوال الرسل صلوات الله وسلامه عليهم مع الله ، وخطابهم وسؤالهم، كيف تجدها كلها مشحونة بالأدب قائمة به : قالُ إبراهيم الخليل صلى الله عليه وسلم: { الَّذِي خَلَقَنِي فَهُوَ يَهْدِينِ (78) َوالَّذِي هُوَ يُطْعِمُنِي وَيَسْقِينِ (79) وَإِذَا مَرِضْتُ فَهُوَ يَشْفِينِ (80)} ، ولم يقل: إذا أمرضني حفظاً للأدب مع الله . وقال آدم عليه السلام : { رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الخَاسِرِينَ } ، ولم يقل: رب قدرت عليّ وقضيت عليَّ . وقول أيوب عليه السلام : { مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُّ وَأَنْتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ }الأنبياء:83، ولم يقل: عافني واشفني . وموسى عليه الصلاة والسلام، حيث قال: { رَبِّ إِنِّي لِمَا أَنزَلْتَ إِلَيَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَقِيرٌ} ، ولم يقل: أطعمني.”
“Islam and Sufism are one. Teaching that to understand Islam one must be a lover, how can one understand Islam when the heart is empty of love.”
“أي عمل تتوكل على الله فيه انسه تماماً، لأنك إن توكلت على الله فهذا يعني أنك وضعت ثقتك في إتمام هذا العمل بمن يملك الأمور كلّها، ومن السماوات والأرض من بعض مربوباته، ومن يجير ولا يجار عليه”
“Interestingly, the more Americans report knowing about Muslim countries, the more likely they are to hold positive views of those countries. (p. 155)”
“Submission, when it is submission to the truth — and when the truth is known to be both beautiful and merciful — has nothing in common with fatalism or stoicism as these terms are understood in the Western tradition, because its motivation is different. According to Fakhr ad-Din ar-RazT, one of the great commentators upon the Quran: The worship of the eyes is weeping, the worship of the ears is listening, the worship of the tongue is praise, the worship of the hands is giving, the worship of the body is effort, the worship of the heart is fear and hope, and the worship of the spirit is surrender and satisfaction in Allah.”
“Islam deals not only with what man must and must not do, but also with what he needs to know. In other words, Islam is both a way of acting and doing things and a way of knowing.”
“Arabic science throughout its golden age was inextricably linked to religion; indeed, it was driven by the need of early scholars to interpret the Qur an.”
“وماذا تساوي العروبة إذا فُرِّغت من الإسلام ؟”
“Repentance and yearning, and yearning and repentance: this is the total harvest of life.”
“Satan puts three knots at the back of the head of any of you if he is asleep. On every knot he reads and exhales the following words, ‘The night is long, so stay asleep.’ When one wakes up and remembers Allah, one knot is undone; and when one performs ablution, the second knot is undone, and when one prays the third knot is undone and one gets up energetic with a good heart in the morning; otherwise one gets up lazy and with a mischievous heart.”
“When my prayers are answered, I am happy because it was my wish. When my prayers are not answered, I am even more happy because that was gods wish.”
“Islam is not man s ultimate justification to do as he pleases--it is, instead, a religion built on reason and evidence. If each of us asks the ustaz for the causes of his religious opinions, then we should, by doing so, help realise the principles of Islam and thus improve intellectual discussion in our own community.”
“By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with it a flourishing civilization and a glorious golden age. Given how far back it stretches in time, the history of the region -- and even of Iraq itself -- is too big a canvas for me to paint. Instead, what I hope to do in this book is take on the nonetheless ambitious task of sharing with you a remarkable story; one of an age in which great geniuses pushed the frontiers of knowledge to such an extent that their work shaped civilizations to this day.”
“There should be no difficulty in understanding this love. Each one of you knows what love is. You know how restless one is to get close to whomsoever one loves; what pleasure one feels even in taking the name of the beloved and in taking that name again and again; the earnest zest with which one strives to win over one s beloved, and the extent to which one dreads the displeasure of the beloved. Just keep examining to what extent you have attained this love. Peep into your heart and see what is the place of Allah therein. The same shall be your place to Him.”