“Many historians regard him [Offa] as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. In the 780s he extended his power over most of Southern England. One of the most remarkable extantfrom King Offa s reign is a gold coin that is kept in the British Museum. On one side, it carries the inscription Offa Rex (Offa the King). But, turn it over and you are in for a surprise, for in badly copied Arabic are the words La Illaha Illa Allah ( There is no god but Allah alone ). This coin is a copy of an Abbasid dinarfrom the reign of Al-Mansur, dating to 773, and was most probably used by Anglo-Saxon traders. It would have been known even in Anglo-Saxon England that Islamic gold dinars were the most important coinage in the world at that time and Offa s coin looked enough like the original that it would have been readily accepted abroad.”
“الإسلام يملك على الإنسان أقطار نفسه من هذه الناحية، فإن أغلب شرائعه تدور على حهاد النفس وجهاد الناس. وجهاد النفس فِطامها عما تشتهي من آثام، أو تجنح إليه من مناكير. وجهاد الناس منع مظالمهم من إفساد الحياة وخلخلة الإيمان، والإصلاح في جنباتها. وكلا الجهادين يستغرق العمر كله لحظة لحظة، ولا يستبقي فرصا للعبث والذهول والغفلات.”
“You know,” said Jehangir, breaking the silence, “it s only Muslims who use the term innovation to mean something bad.”
“Muslim children should be raised with the understanding that once they hit puberty they are adults and Mukallaf (responsible for their actions). This understanding is crucial to assist them in passing the tests of youth.”
“ربِ طرقنا بابك و طمعنا في حسن أسمائك و صفاتك وتعلقنا في أطراف جميل وعودك لعبادك .. فثبت حجتنا وأحكم قبضتنا ~ نعوذ بك من أن نفلت أو نهوى”
“The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.”
“From my earliest works written in the 1950s and 1960s, I have claimed that there is such a thing as Islamic science with a twelve-hundred-year tradition of its own and that this science is Islamic not only because it was cultivated by Muslims, but because it is based on a worldview and a cosmology rooted in the Islamic revelation.”
“Kaedah atau amalan atau cara ini mungkin tidak boleh diterima oleh kebanyakan orang Islam sekarang ini yang mengamalkan Islam luaran sahaja oleh kerana kebanyakan hadis Rasulullah tentang hakikat Rasulullah dianggap oleh mereka sebagai merendahkan kemutlakan Tuhan atau ditohmahkan ia muncul hasil dari rekaan musuh-musuh Islam. Kita fikirkan bahawa, disebabkan beberapa kesilapan, ketidakbiasaan dengan hadis yang sebegini rupa dan fahaman yang bersifat esoterik itu biasanya tidak dibawa ke dalam semua rangkaian rantai penyampaian hadis itulah yang menyebabkan penolakan dan kecurigaan ini. Ini juga berpunca dari minda moden yang gagal memahami makna yang tersirat di dalam fahaman Sufi tentang konsep penciptaan, yang mana tidak pernah dipelajari atau didedahkan kepada minda orang Islam moden lalu menyababkan kegagalan mereka untuk menghargainya. Mereka tidak pernah terjumpa dengan fahaman yang sebegini rupa di dalam silibus falsafah dan sastera di dalam institusi pembelajaran moden atau di dalam sistem pembelajaran amnya.”
“The gnostic is Muslim in that his whole being is surrendered to God; he has no separate individual existence of his own. He is like the birds and the flowers in his yielding to the Creator; like them, like all the elements of the cosmos, he reflects the Divine to his own degree. He reflects it actively, however, they passively; his participation is a conscious one.”
“Berjalanlah dan terus berjalanlah dengan niat kebaikan untuk mengejar restu dari Allah, bersama orang-orang yang kaucintai, lalu sematkan dalam hati dan pikiranmu akan perjalanan hidupmu tentang surga yang akan kaugapai. Maka seberat, sepanjang, dan sebesar apa pun halangan yang melintangi langkahmu, akan terbuka dengan sendirinya atas Izin-Nya. Ingatlah, Tuhan akan mengirim malaikat-malaikat-Nya yang mempunyai keringanan tangan tak bertepi untuk menyelamatkanmu manakala kau hendak terpeleset di ujung jurang yang curam. (123)”
“Ka b ibn Malik reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, Two hungry wolves loose among sheep do not cause as much damage as that caused to a man s deen by his greed for money and reputation.”
“The desired Islamic state might be likened to an orchard planted with olive and palm trees that will take a relatively long time to produce fruit.”
“Logic, when used correctly and by an intellect that is not corrupted by the lower passions, may lead to one to the Transcendent itself.”
“Die before you Die”
“As to the Left I ll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our national security calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of Left intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush s legitimacy. So I don t even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.”
“Faith in Qur anic revelation unveils all the possibilities that lie before the human intellect.”
“In the late hours of the night, befriend the prayer mat.”