DEPTOCRACY

http://www.debtocracy.gr/

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

On Religion

There's something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life. ~John Updike, Self-Consciousness, 1989


A religion without the element of mystery would not be a religion at all. ~Edwin Lewis


It is doubtless true that religion has been the world's psychiatrist throughout the centuries. ~Karl Menninger


Religion is the metaphysics of the masses. ~Arthur Schopenhauer


All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. ~Cathy Ladman


No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard. ~William Ernest Hocking


The church is the great lost and found department. ~Robert Short


I speak not of men's creeds - they rest between
Man and his Maker.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage


God made so many different kinds of people. Why would he allow only one way to serve him? ~Martin Buber


All religions must be tolerated... for... every man must get to heaven his own way. ~Frederick the Great


This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~Dalai Lama


People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady that neither of them care for. ~George Savile, Marquess de Halifax


Most sermons sound to me like commercials - but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances. ~Theodore Dreiser, 1941


I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


All men have need of the gods. ~Homer


There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. ~George Bernard Shaw


Philosophy is the love of wisdom: Christianity is the wisdom of love. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure. ~Harvard Lamphoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)


Follow Descartes! Do not give up the religion of your youth until you get a better one. ~Martin H. Fischer


Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. ~Seneca the Younger


No man treats a motor car as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin, he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and set it right. ~Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?


My religious position: I think that God could do a lot better, and I'm willing to give Him the chance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine. ~Austin O'Malley


The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell. ~Sean Ningen


Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. ~G.K. Chesterton


Christianity is not being destroyed by the confusions and concussions of the time; it is being discovered. ~Hugh E. Brown


A faith of convenience is a hollow faith. ~M*A*S*H, Father Mulcahy, "A Holy Mess," 1982


The churches must learn humility as well as teach it. ~George Bernard Shaw, St. Joan


I considered atheism, but there weren't enough holidays. ~Author Unknown


A religion can no more afford to degrade its Devil than to degrade its God. ~Havelock Ellis


This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen. ~George Carlin


Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. ~John Morley


In church, sacred music would make believers of us all - but preachers can be counted on to restore the balance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


How orderly philosophical is the landscape, are all the inhabitants of this World! It is the creation of a god who "ever plays the geometer." ~Aldous Huxley, "Music at Night"


Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. ~Mark Twain


Traveler: "God has been mighty good to your fields, Mr. Farmer."
Farmer: "You should have seen how he treated them when I wasn't around."
~Author Unknown


I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. ~Doug McLeod


I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. ~Joe Mullally


Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. ~William James


You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott


But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain


Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. ~Ambrose Bierce


Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people. ~Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," 1884


I believe in God; I just don't trust anyone who works for him. ~Author unknown, from a stand-up comedy routine on television


There are three religious truths: 1) Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 2) Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. 3) Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters. ~Author Unknown


Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom. ~Author Unknown


Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. ~Author Unknown


Were the purportings of the Bible to be a revelation false, it would still be the truest book that was ever written. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


It is fear that first brought gods into the world. ~Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon


If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides. ~Old Yiddish Proverb


The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. ~Richard Burton


Religion is a fashionable substitute for Belief. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891


I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts


I'm not religious, but I like God and he likes me. ~Tony Kushner, Angels in America


Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? ~Douglas Adams


No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. ~David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 1739


In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. ~Thomas Jefferson


I didn't know I had a quarrel with him. ~Henry Thoreau in answer to the question, "Have you made your peace with God?"


In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners. ~Jonathon Miller


I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. ~George Carlin


It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ~Thomas Jefferson


Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it. ~Diderot, Pensées philosophiques, 1746


If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did." ~Saturday Night Live, Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts "


When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out. ~Frank Sinatra


My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God. ~Albert Einstein


Some people would have us love, or rather obey God, chiefly because he outbids the devil. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist. ~G.C. Lichtenberg


I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless. ~Peter Walker


What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. ~George Santayana, Reason in Religion


Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. ~Ambrose Bierce


"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. ~Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction. ~Author Unknown


A man without religion is like a horse without a bridle. ~Latin Proverb


There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave. ~Louis Kronenberger


The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? ~John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 20 June 1815


Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens. ~Michel de Montaigne, translated


Moral: a peerless maxim enumerated by God in his Holy Bible, such as that of Deut. 23:1, if your testicles are crushed or your male member missing, you must never enter a sanctuary of the Lord. ~Donald Morgan


It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. ~Denis Diderot


How many observe Christ's birthday! How few his precepts!
O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.
~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757


Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it. ~C.C. Colton


To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely. ~Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinthes, 1962


Religion is a pill best swallowed without chewing. ~Author Unknown


A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. ~Francis Bacon, Essays: Of Atheism, 1625


Impiety, n.: Your irreverence toward my deity. ~Ambrose Bierce


There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said "Let us pray," and we dutifully shut our eyes. When we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible. ~Desmond M. Tutu, "Religious Human Rights and the Bible"


A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. ~James Feibleman, Understanding Philosophy, 1973


I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. ~Pearl S. Buck


Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. ~Ambrose Bierce


An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek


I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge


God is a concept by which we measure our pain. ~John Lennon


The faith that stands on authority is not faith. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. ~Edgar Allen Poe


On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism. ~Barry Goldwater


People who rely most on God rely least on themselves. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't. ~George Bernard Shaw


God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning. ~Imamu Amiri Baraka


Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny. ~George Santayana


The world is not a prison house but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson


To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God. ~Victor Hugo


It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity. ~Abraham Lincoln, quoted in What Great Men Think Of Religion by Ira Cardiff


Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains.... But it can put mountains where there are none. ~Friedrich Nietzche, Human, All Too Human, 1879


It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. ~H.L. Mencken


Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it. ~George Bernard Shaw


The Bible is literature, not dogma. ~George Santayana


The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings. ~Garrett Hardin


Sunday school: a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. ~H.L. Mencken


Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on. ~Author Unknown


The wages of sin are death, but after they take the taxes out, it's more like a tired feeling, really. ~Paula Poundstone


To all things clergic
I am allergic
~Alexander Woolcott, attributed


No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus. ~G.B. Shaw, Androcles and the Lion, 1912


What has been the effect of religious coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785


The act of bellringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. ~Ezra Pound


In general, the churches, visited by me often on weekdays... bore for me the same relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola; they promoted thirst without quenching it. ~John Updike, A Month of Sundays, 1975


Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. ~Mark Twain


In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination. ~Mark Twain


If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. ~Isaac Asimov, I. Asimov: A Memoir


Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion. ~Robert Green Ingersoll


God - but a word invoked to explain the world. ~Prat de Lamartine


Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them? ~Jules Feiffer


How can the Church be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible? ~John W. Draper


Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ~Robert Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long


The Theologian is an owl, sitting on an old dead branch in the tree of human knowledge, and hooting the same old hoots that have been hooted for hundreds and thousands of years, but he has never given a hoot for progress. ~Emmet F. Fields


When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned. ~Robert Ingersoll, Some Reasons Why


Religions are like farts. Yours is good, but everyone else's stinks. ~Picket Fences


Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!" ~Author Unknown


We are not accountable for the sins of Adam. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


The third major characteristic of God - "infinitude" - is the catchall, the universal modifier of Christian theology. God is not merely a being; he is infinite being. God is not merely good; he is infinite goodness. God is not merely wise; he is infinite wisdom. And so on down the list. God is exaggeration run amuck. ~George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God


We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. ~H.L. Mencken


[The true Indian] sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, because to him all days are God's days. The first American mingled with his pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. ~Ohiyesa of the Santee Sioux (Charles Alexander Eastman)


On the sixth day God created man. On the seventh day, man returned the favor. ~Author Unknown


If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment. ~Voltaire


For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law, it is administered with subhuman efficiency. ~Eric Ambler


God is innocent. Noah built in a flood plain. ~Author Unknown


To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. ~Ghose Aurobindo


Nowhere is there an account or portrait of Christ laughing... he is always stern, serious and as gloomy as a prison guard. Never does one see him laughing until tears appear in his eyes like the roly-poly squint-eyed Buddha guffawing with arms upraised. ~Author Unknown


The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. ~Alfred North Whitehead


Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it. ~Soren Kierkegaard, Time, 16 December 1946


Christian fundamentalism: the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life. ~Andrew Lias


Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founders' than any other agency in the world. ~Richard Le Gallienne


I prefer to think of them as the Ten Suggestions. ~Author Unknown


Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911


If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. ~Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?


God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. ~Voltaire


If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect. ~Robert G. Ingersoll, The Gods, 1872


It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin. ~H.L. Mencken


On the other hand, the Bible contains much that is relevant today, like Noah taking forty days to find a place to park. ~Curtis McDougall


An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. ~Robert Ingersoll, quoted in Ingersoll the Magnificent


Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry. ~Author Unknown


It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


In an early class, one of the students asked me if I believed in God. I replied, 'I don't think so.' And then proceeded to wail on the theme, using material from this column of some weeks ago, in which I observed the perpetuation of insanity on this planet through the mediums of Arabs-vs-Jews, Catholics-vs-Protestants, Southern Baptists-vs-Everyone. I said I felt if 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them,' (Genesis 2:27, King James's italics, not mine) then we were God. And when Man (my capitalization, not King James's) in his most creative, his most loving, his most gentle and most human, then he is most God-like. The student said he would pray for my immortal soul. He also asked for my address, so he could send me some literature on the subject of God. I thanked him politely and told him I'd gotten all the literature I could handle on the subject from a certain Thomas Aquinas. ~Harlan Ellison


Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. ~Chapman Cohen


I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck. ~Author Unknown


Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one. ~Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion


He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him. ~George Orwell


God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown. ~Friedrich Neitzsche


None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The records do not show that Adam and Eve were married. ~Ed Howe


In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. ~Stephen J. Gould


The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. ~George Bernard Shaw


Church tax exemption means that we all drop our money in the collection boxes, whether we go to church or not and whether we are interested in the church or not. It is systematic and complete robbery, from which none of us escapes. ~E. Haldeman-Julius, The Church Is a Burden, Not a Benefit, In Social Life


You can never tell the sinner from the Christian. They drink the same drinks and smoke the same cigars. ~Aimee Semple McPherson


An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. ~John Buchan


Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car. ~Author Unknown


Instead of being born again, why not just grow up? ~Author Unknown


A Christian is a man who feels
Repentance on a Sunday
For what he did on Saturday
And is going to do on Monday.
~Thomas Russell Ybarra, The Christian


A great deal of what passes for current Christianity consists in denouncing other people's vices and faults. ~Henry H. Williams


The point is, could God pass an examination in Theology? ~Malcolm Muggeridge


The idea of an incarnation of God is absurd: why should the human race think itself so superior to bees, ants, and elephants as to be put in this unique relation to its maker?... Christians are like a council of frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung-hill croaking and squeaking "for our sakes was the world created." ~Julian the Apostate


Jesus saves... passes to Moses... shoots... scores! ~Author Unknown


Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish. ~Author Unknown


They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of the Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not. ~Clarence Darrow


To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals. ~Don Schrader


A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system? ~Robert A. Heinlein


God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If this was the only way they could understand the difference between good and evil, how could they have known that it was wrong to disobey God and eat the fruit? ~Laurie Lynn


A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen. ~Emily Lotney


I like to browse in occult bookshops if for no other reason than to refresh my commitment to science. ~Heinz Pagels, The Dreams of Reason


I believe in God, but I'm not too clear on the other details. ~Bill Veeck


People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"


Thousands have gone to heaven who never read one page of the Bible. ~Francis A. Baker


If God doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you. ~Author Unknown


No rage is equal to the rage of a contented right-thinking man when he is confronted in the marketplace by an idea which belongs in the pulpit. ~Thurman W. Arnold


Those people who tell me that I'm going to hell while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going to separate destinations. ~Martin Terman


Inspiration: a peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God. ~Voltaire


A theologian is a person who uses the word 'God' to hide his ignorance. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


The myths about Hades and the gods, though they are pure invention, help to make men virtuous. ~Diodorus Siculus, c. 20 BC


The Bible may be the truth but it's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. ~Samuel Butler


Religion seems to have a way of making people abandon logic. ~Amanda Baxter


So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. ~Bertrand Russell


You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough. ~Aldous Huxley


Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness. ~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity


One cannot erect, on the basis of a motive that exists only for a very few, an obligation that shall apply to everyone. ~Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion


The Cross is a gibbet - rather an odd thing to make use of as a talisman against bad luck, if that is how we regard it. Or is it, instead, a cynical reminder that Virtue usually gets pilloried whenever it makes one of its occasional appearances in this world? ~Denis Johnston, The Brazen Horn


God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism. ~Donald Morgan


I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. ~Frederick Douglass, escaped slave


[A]ll deities reside in the human breast. ~William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"


Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love. ~Butch Hancock


The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs. ~Bill Maher


Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. ~Pascal, Pensees, 1670


The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well-kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor keep the fasts. ~Sydney Smith


A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. ~Carl Sagan


The imaginary flowers of religion adorn man's chains. Man must throw off the flowers and also the chains. ~Karl Marx, The Wisdom of Karl Marx


Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him! ~Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger


It was subtle of God to learn Greek when he wished to become an author - and not to learn it better. ~Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886


The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine? ~Judith Hayes


Nature wants us to enjoy life to the full and die without giving it a second thought; Christianity wants the opposite. ~Sainte-Beuve, Les Cahiers


There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the clergyman. ~Victor Hugo


Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe. ~Luther Burbank, Why I Am an Infidel


I have never resisted the lord in my life, and I never will. But I'm not so hungry for dialogue with him that I have to make up his part as well as my own. ~Orson Scott Card


No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. ~George Bernard Shaw


But I was not, to use the theological phrase, receptive. The great obstacle to the influx of grace was my own perfect happiness, and it is well known that God takes no thought for the happy, any more than He does for birds and puppies, perhaps realizing they have no need of Him and mercifully letting them alone. ~John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, 1970


This doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind. ~Herbert J. Muller


Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats, then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure. ~Fred Allen


It is the position of some theists that their right to freedom OF religion is abridged when they are not allowed to violate the rationalists' right to freedom FROM religion. ~James T. Green


A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get root. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood. ~George Carlin


Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior? ~James Donovan


Faith is never identical with piety. ~Karl Barth


I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said 'Stop! don't do it!' 'Why shouldn't I?' he said. I said, 'Well, there's so much to live for!' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Well...are you religious or atheist?' He said, 'Religious.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?' He said, 'Christian.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?' He said, 'Protestant.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' He said, 'Baptist!' I said, 'Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?' He said, 'Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!' I said, 'Die, heretic scum,' and pushed him off. ~Emo Phillips


Jesus picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world. ~Bruce Barton


The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is 'Spare the rod, spoil the child.' A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is 'Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.' It does not mean 'Beat the shit out of your child or he will become rotten' as many fundamentalist parents seem to belive. ~Author Unknown


Most reformers wore rubber boots and stood on glass when God sent a current of Commonsense through the Universe. ~Elbert Hubbard


The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. ~Carl Sagan


If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said "No." ~Margaret "Stevie" Smith


Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men. ~Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1


He talked about Father Junipero Serra's qualifications for sainthood: they say he cured a nun's lupus. A miracle. Now I'm not a doctor, but I know lupus goes into remission. It's not always fatal. Have Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder play ping-pong together. That's a miracle. ~Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 February 1989


The last Christian died on the cross. ~Friedrich Nietzsche


The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. ~Albert Einstein


If the sole reason why you must not kill your neighbour is because God has forbidden it and will severely punish you for it in this or the next life - then, when you learn that there is no God and that you need not fear His punishment, you will certainly kill your neighbour without hesitation, and you can only be prevented from doing so by mundane force. Thus either these dangerous masses must be held down most severely and kept most carefully away from any chance of intellectual awakening, or else the relationship between civilization and religion must undergo a fundamental revision. ~Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion


Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God. ~Lennie Bruce, The Essential Lennie Bruce, 1972


If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. ~Lenny Bruce


Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. ~H.L. Mencken


God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on where to go. "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. "Well, how about Mercury?" "No, it's too hot there." "Okay," said St. Peter, "what about Earth?" "No," said God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're still talking about it." ~Author Unknown


The Virgin Mary was an unwed teenage mother. ~Author Unknown


The Christian Right is neither. ~Author Unknown


[Creation science is] an attempt to give credibility to Hebrew mythology by making people believe that the world's foremost biologists, paleontologists, and geologists are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. ~Ron Peterson


Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. ~Author Unknown


"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow


Without cultural sanction, most or all our religious beliefs and rituals would fall into the domain of mental disturbance. ~John F. Schumaker, Corruption of Reality, Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis and Psychotherapy


We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~Jonathan Swift, Miscellanies, 1711


We are punished by our sins, not for them. ~Elbert Hubbard


It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui. ~Helen Keller


As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. ~Author Unknown


Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals. ~Agnes Repplier, Points of View


It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it. ~G.K. Chesterton

Seven Editions of the Divine Law

According to the Bible, God has a method of gradual revelation and publication of his law. It was first written on nature, next on man, then the fundamental principles on the tablets of stone. In due time, Jesus appeared as the perfect embodiment of the truth, which he illustrated in his own sinless life. Later came the entire Scriptures, the larger and completed written edition. It was God's purpose that his law should also be written in the hearts of his people, with its precepts able to be "read" in their outward lives.

1. First Edition: Written on Nature - Psalms 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork."

2. Second Edition: Written on Conscience - Romans 2:15: "Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another."

3. Third Edition: Written on Tablets of Stone - Exodus 24:12: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them."

4. Fourth Edition: Christ the Living Word - John 1:14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

5. Fifth Edition: The Entire Scriptures - Romans 15:4: "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope."

6. Sixth Edition: Written on the Heart - Hebrews 8:10: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people."

7. Seventh Edition: Christians as Living Epistles - 2 Corinthians 3:2-3: "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."

The important things in life

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively
filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else---the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children and grandchildren. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner.

Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm
glad you asked.'

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Arabian - Muslim Quotes and sayings

Balaghal ula be kamaalihi. Kashafad duja be jamaalihi. Hasanat jami'u khisaalihi. Sallu 'alayhi wa aalihi.

He taught people with his best way. He showed his beauty. He was all good so peace be on him and his family.
- Saadi al-Shiraz commenting on the ways of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




When the world pushes you to your knees, your are in the perfect position to pray.




If Allah brings you to it, He will bring you through it.




Twakkul: Make Du'a, Do your best, And leave the Rest To Allah.




Be yourself beautiful, and you will find the world full of beauty.




Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (rahimullah) was asked about the correct meaning of this hadith:
'When you hear something form or about your brother, ascribe to it the best interpretation until you can no longer do so.'
He replied, Find an excuse for him by saying, "Maybe he said this, or maybe he meant such and such."




If the first inward thought is not warded off, it will generate a desire, then the desire will generate a wish, and the wish will generate an intention, and the intention will generate the action, and the action will result in ruin and divine wrath. So evil must be cut off at its root, which is when it is simply a thought that crosses the mind, from which all the other things follow on.
- Imam abu Hamid al-Ghazzali
[Ihyaa Uloom al-Deen, 6/17]




The World is three days: As for yesterday, it has vanished, along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for today, it is yours, so work in it.
- Hassan al-Basri




Whoever follows patience, success will follow him.




As there is no darkness in the moonlight. So is Mustafa (Muhammad), the well wisher, bright.
- Abu Bakr as-Sideeq (radiAllahu anhu)




Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy. - Jalaluddin al-Rumi




A friend cannot be considered a friend until he is tested in three occasions: in time of need, behind your back, and after your death.
- Ali ibn abi Talib (radiAllah anhu)




Stingyness has nothing to do with how much money you have. Neither does generosity. Its about how much heart you've got.




Better to avoid the poison altogether than to try to heal from the damage it causes.




When someone criticises or disagrees with you, a small ant of hatred and antagonism is born in your heart. If you do not squash that ant at once, it might grow into a snake, or even a dragon.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi
[Mathnavi]




Whoever is offered an apology from a fellow Muslim should accept it unless he knows that the person apologizing is being dishonest.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Mishkat al Tabrizi, Vol III Hadith no. 5052].




Verily those people that make fun of people � for them a gate of Jannah will be opened. It will be said to them: Come (and enter). That person will come with all their anguish and depression � but when he gets close, the gate will be closed in his face. Then another gate (to Jannah) will be opened and it will be said: Come (and enter). So that person comes with all his anguish and depression. But when he gets close, the gate will be closed in his face. This will keep happening to him until it gets to the point where it will be said: Come (and enter), and he will not come from the despair of ever entering paradise.
- Hadith - Al-Bayhaqi




Cease to sin, because you will not meet Allah with anything [as valuable] as few sins.
- A'isha (radiAllahu anha)




The Muslim ummah is an unique ummah among the whole of mankind: Their Land is One, their War is One, their Peace is One, theirHonor is One and their Trust is One.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[narrated by Ahmad]




If you are aware of your humility, then you are arrogant.
- Ibn Ata'illah




To admonish your brother in private is to advise him and improve him. But to admonish him publicly is to disgrace and shame him.
- Imam Shafi (rahimullah)




Knowledge is understanding that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.




The root meaning of Taqwa is to avoid what one dislikes. It was reported that Umar bin Al-Khattab asked Ubayy bin Ka`b about Taqwa. Ubayy said, "Have you ever walked on a path that has thorns on it'' 'Umar said, "Yes." Ubayy said, "What did you do then" He said, "I rolled up my sleeves and struggled." Ubayy said, "That is Taqwa."




Nobody Can Remove Hurt Except Allah. Even if someone tries to cause you any hurt, stay firm in your belief and remember that no one can cause you any pain if Allah does not desire it for you
"And if Allah touches you with hurt, there is none who can remove it but He; and if He intends any good for you, there is none who can keep back His favour; He brings it to whom He pleases of His servants; And He is the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."
- Qur'an, surah Yunus; 10:107




God made the illusion look real
and the real an illusion.
He concealed the sea
and made the foam visible,
the wind invisible,
and the dust manifest.
you see the dust whirling,
but how can the dust rise by itself?
you see the foam,but not the ocean.
invoke Him with deeds, not words;
for deeds are real
and will save you in the infinite-life.
- Rumi
[Mathnawi]




If you make intense supplication
and the timing of the answer is delayed,
do not despair of it.
His reply to you is guaranteed;
but in the way He chooses,
not the way you choose,
and at the moment He desires,
not the moment you desire.
- Ibn Ata'illah Iskandari
[Al-hikam al-'Ata'iyyah]




Allah doesn't like unjustice. He loveth not those who do wrong. If you end up suffering injustice, we do not know what Allah has planned in the bigger picture of things. Allah is The Just; and will bring justice. If not now, then in the hereafter.




Knowledge is of two kinds: that which is absorbed and that which is heard. And that which is heard does not profit if it is not absorbed.
- Ali ibn abi Talib (radiAllah anhu)




Whoever passes forty without his virtue overpowering his vice, let him get ready for hellfire!� This advice contains enough for people of knowledge.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali
['Letter to a Disciple' Ayyuha�l-walad]




Innumerable changes of moods are yours,
and they are uncontrolled by you.
If you knew their origin,
you would be able to dominate them.
If you cannot localize your own changes,
how can you localize that which formed you?
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi
[Fihi Ma Fihi]




Love all, with sincere love and concern.




The eye of the heart, though closed in fallen man, is able to take in a glimmering of light and this is faith. But anway of living causes a covering like rust to accumulate over the heart so that it cannot sense the Divine origin of God's message.
- Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin)




Reflect on the work of art and you may attain to the artist.
- Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani
[The sublime revelation, p32]




Joy and sorrow are the light and shade of life;
without light and shade no picture is clear.
- Inayat Khan




Being married forces you to fine tune those not-so-great-aspects of yourself and strive to be better. Love comes in here too; when you are in a loving relationship (and in love and loved); you have this amazing reservoir of energy within you that allows you to flourish and nurture. It brings out the best in you and makes you strive to be better because someone cares and loves you; and vice versa. It is kind of like how we instinctively react to another's perception of us, when they think well of us and believe in us, we want to do even better; but when they disparage us we will get defensive. Is it any wonder that our beloved prophet (saw) said that marriage is half of faith?




I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.
- Rabia al-Adawiya




Some people make their goals the stars,
They may live and die never reaching them,
but in the darkness of the night, those stars will guide them to their destination,
because they put them in their sights.




How long will you keep pounding on an open door
Begging for someone to open it? - Rabia al-Adawiyyah




Sins.
It wouldn't achieve anything, except points in your book of deeds.




The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Listen to your heart and not your ego. Your ego prompts you to boast of vain assertions to obtain the glory of this world. Turn away from vanity and seek Him in the recesses of your heart and soul
-Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani
[Fayuz E Yazdani]




If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.




The one who admonishes his brother secretly, he has advised sincerely and has honored him. If he does it outwardly (among others) then he has dishonored and shamed him.
- Imam ash-Shafi (rahimullah)




A man lost his way in the desert, and wandered aimlessly for several days. He ran out of food, and thought he would die. Then he saw a bag lying in the sand. He opened it, and at first he thought it was filled with grains of barley. He was overjoyed. But when he tried to eat them, he discovered they were pearls�and he plunged into despair.
- Saadi ash-Shiraz, "Gulistan"




It is sometimes said that we drink our religion with our mother's milk.
– abu-Hamid al-Ghazali




Imam al-Shafi' in his final sickness said:
When my heart was hardened
and my courses constrained
I made my hope a stairway
to Your forgiveness
My sin burdened me heavily,
but when I measured it
by Your forgiveness
Lord,
Your forgiveness was the greater.




If you make demands on Him, you doubt Him.
If you seek Him, you are absent from Him.
If you seek other-than-Him, you are shameless before Him.
If you make demands on other-than-Him, you are distant from Him.
- Ibn Ata'illah Iskandari
[Al-hikam al-'Ata'iyyah]




'Work for your terrestrial life in proportion to your location in it, and work for your afterlife in proportion to your eternity in it. - abu Hamid al-Ghazali
[part of the advice that the great theologian and mystic put down in his Letter to a Disciple]




Stay close by the door, if you desire all beauty
And leave aside sleep, if you wish to arrive

And make of the spirit your first place of account
To the beloved, whose lights shine as from gold

All of them worship out of fear of the fire �
And consider deliverance abundant good fortune -

Or, so they may dwell in the gardens, and reach
To the meadows of paradise, and there drink from its rivers

Of gardens or fire I have no opinion
I seek no exchange for my dearest love
- Rabia Al-Adawiyya




It is mentioned that a person once came to Ali ibn abi Talib (radiAllahu anhu) and questioned him regarding fate. He replied, "raise one foot", and after doing as he was told, Ali ibn abi Talib (radiAllahu anhu) said, "now raise the other", which he was obviously not able to do so.
The lesson was that some things we have control over, although Allah has knowledge of that also, but some things we have no control over. Taqdeer (destiny).
Similarly, we can say that our partners are written for us but we have some level of choice.




The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.




Maa ki du'a, jannat ki hawa
mother's dua, [brings] Jannah's air
- Urdu proverb




Try to dissolve out of selfishness into a voice beyond those limits.




Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.




My son, when you pray, do it like a person who is bidding farewell to this world, and don�t assume you will have another chance to pray again. My son, know that a believer dies in between two deeds, one he offers for today, where he will get immediate blessings, and the second deed is what he offers towards the day of resurrection, and that is where he will gain the ultimate benefits
- Muadh Ibn Jabal (radiAllahu anhu)




All are stricken and you are safe?
All got it wrong and you got it right?
All are blameworthy, and you have excuses?




The candle is not there to illuminate itself
- Nawab Jan-Fishan Khan




O Lord!
If I worship You from fear of Hell, cast me into Hell.
If I worship You from desire for Paradise, deny me Paradise
but if I worship You for Your own sake,
then withhold not from me Your Eternal Beauty
- Rabia al-Adawiya




The Righteous Salaf were as fearful of their good deeds being squandered, or not being accepted, as the present generation is certain that their neglect would be forgiven.
- Hasan al-Basri




True devotion is to loose the faculty of being conscious of your devotion; for someone who identifies devotion in his devotion is a person whose devotion is in need of devotion.
- as Sousi




Put aside your pride,
Set down your arrogance,
And remember your grave.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




One of the signs of relying on deeds is loss of hope when a misstep occurs. - Ibn Ata'illah Iskandari




That which God said to the rose,
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
he said to my heart,
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi [Mathnawi, III, 4129]




I have been so naughted in Thy Love's existence that my nonexistence is a thousand times sweeter than my existence
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Does money upset the hearts of learned men?
He answered, "men whose hearts are changed by money are not learned"
- abu Hamid al Ghazali




The spiritual warrior is he who breaks an idol;
and the idol of each person is his Ego.
- Imam Abul Qasim al-Qushayri
[from al-Risala al-Qushayrriya]




Do to me, O Allah, what is worthy of Thee; And not what is worthy of me.
- Saadi al-Shiraz
[Gulistan]




People choose the path of their own lives: victor or victim.
You claim your role by the choices you make along the way.




To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.




Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.




We should think of those who were famous for their good deeds or their bad deeds; did their fame raise them one single degree in the sight of Allah. Did it win them a reward that they had not already won by their actions during their life?
- Ibn Hazm
[Kitab Al-Akhlaq wa al-Siyar fi Mudawat al-Nufus]




Say the truth even if it may be bitter.
- Prophet Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




A man not progressing is not standing still. He is stagnating.




Never break a Muslim�s heart by refusing what he offers you, when you know that anything that comes to you through him is in reality from God, and he is only His powerless and compelled means.
Imam al Haddad
[from 'Book of Assistance']




Pride is concerned with who is right.
Humility is concerned with what is right.




Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
- Baruch Spinoza (1632�77)




Whoever gives advice to a heedless man is himself in need of advice.
- Saadi al-Shiraz




There is not on the face of the earth—after the Book of Allah — a book which is more sahih than the book of Malik.
- Imam Shafi'i




He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man
- William Shakespeare




While you are alive, your worldy self is like a collector of benefits from Allah's bounties, which come to you from myriads of hands. - Ibn 'Arabi




Every drop of sweat
and every breath we take in life,
if not taken for the sake of Allah,
will lead to regret and sorrow
on the Day of Judgment
- Ibn Al-Qayyim




Intelligence is the shadow of objective truth.
How can the shadow vie with sunshine?
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




If a gem falls into mud it is still valuable.
If dust ascends to heaven, it remains valueless.
- Saadi al-Shiraz




Repel the thought, for if you don�t, it becomes an idea. So repel the idea, for if you don�t it will become a desire. So fight against that (desire), for if you don�t, it will become a determination and a passion. And if you don�t repel that, it will become an action. And if you don�t replace it with its opposite, it will become a constant habit. So at that point, it will be difficult for you to change it.
- Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah [from al-Fawaa'id]




Truthfulness is composed of justice and courage.
- Ibn Hazm
[Kitab al-Akhlaq wa al-Siyar fi Mudawat al-Nufus]




Remembrance of Allah is certain knowledge of one's belief ('ilm al-iman), immunity from hypocrisy (baraa'at min al-nifaaq), a fortress against Shaytan (Husn min al-shaytaan), and a guarded refuge from the fire (Hirz min al-naar).
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




Ikhlaas is to forget the vision of creation by constantly looking at the Creator.
- Abu Uthman




In the sea there are countless treasures,
But if you desire safety, it is on the shore.
- Sa'di




The creative spirit demands persistence.




Seeking knowledge at an Young age is like engraving on a stone.
- Hasan al-Basri




Like us many have spoken over this spring, but they were gone in the twinkling of an eye.
We conquered the world with bravery and might, but we did not take it with us to the grave.
- Zahiruddin Muhammad (Babur)




People need comfort.
Some people find it in this, some find it in that and some don't find it at all.
Allah in His infinite Wisdom has designed everything on this planet earth, the universe around and within it to ultimately point to Him. The signs are everywhere.
Everything points to Him.
You just have to look.




The lower self is greedy,
teach it to be content.




"And We shall try you until We test those among you who strive their utmost and persevere in patience"
- Qur'an, 47:31




We should be thankful.
One of the greatest parts of our spiritual path should be thankfulness.
No matter what happens.
No matter what happens.




Your destiny is Allah.




The best provision is piety.




Knowledge is not what is memorised.
Knowledge is what benefits.
- Imam Shafi'
(In other words, that which has results)




By the mercy of God Paradise has eight doors � one of those is the door of repentance, child. All the others are sometimes open, sometimes shut, but the door of repentance is never closed. Come seize the opportunity: the door is open; carry your baggage there at once.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi
[Mathnawi IV: 2506-2508, 'Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance']




Not wishy-washy, not up and down, don't zig and zag.
Be firm.
Walk straight.




The Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) was then taken into Paradise and he reported that he saw in it domes of pearls and it's soil was made of musk
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[reported by Anas ibn Malik in Sahih al-Bukhari]




Strain not your eyes toward that which We have given for some pairs among them to enjoy�the flower of this world�s life, that We may thereby put them to the test. Your Lord�s provision is better and more lasting. - Qur'an 20:131




Shaitan is always looking for an opening to get you.
Drive him away with Dhikr.




What hand do you think you will get your book, on the Day of Judgement?




When we look for strength in ourselves, we will be weak.
When we look for strength in Allah, we will be invincible.




How can you Despair?
Despair is when you are not getting anywhere.
Allah has said that He will never let any of our good deeds be lost.




Ali ibn abi Talib (radiAllahu anhu) in his letter to malik e Ashtar, when sending him to a town which was half muslim and half non muslim:
"O Malik, remember they are either your brothers in faith or your equals in humanity"




There are distinctions among people.
People are like metal in the earth.
Gold, silver, aluminium, iron...




The hypocrite looks for faults; the believer looks for excuses.
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Never do I argue with a man with a desire to hear him say
what is wrong, or to expose him and win victory over him.
Whenever I face an opponent in debate I silently pray -
O Lord, help him so that truth may flow from his heart
and on his tongue, and so that if truth is on my side, he may follow me;
and if truth be on his side, I may follow him.
- Imam Ash-Shafi (rahimullah)




If you wish to know which sciences and acts are the most important and beneficial for you, imagine that you are to die the next day and return to God to stand before Him and be asked to account for your knowledge, behaviour, and all your affairs and states, subsequently to be taken either to the Garden or the Fire. What you see there as most important and useful to you is precisely what you must now give priority and attachment to; whereas what you find useless, unimportant, frivolous, or simply of no great necessity is what you must neither pursue nor occupy yourself with in this life. Meditate on this matter and reflect well; it is of tremendous benefit to those who have discernment and are concerned about their appointed time, their return to God, their salvation, and their success in the Hereafter, which is better and more enduring (Quran 87:17). Success is in the Hand of God, to whom belong all graces, for He bestows them on whomever He wills; and God�s graces are immense!
- Imam al-Haddad
[from 'Knowledge and Wisdom'
translated by Mostafa Badawi, Starlatch Press, 2001]




The need of the hour is that your life should be revolutionised.
The revolution should not be an individual one but a collective one.
The change should be concerning your belief, your morals, your actions, your dealings, your decisions, and your efforts.
Your life in every way should become a beacon of guidance and it should become a means for Dawah.
-- Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi




Those who Know they do not Know that to Know is to Know what they do not Know!
- (Aveccina) Ali Sina




A feeling of discouragement when you slip up
is a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds
- ibn 'Ajiba




History is a signpost for the future...




The 'best awareness [ma'rifa] is for a man to have self-awareness.
And the best knowledge ['ilm] is for a man to stop at the limit of his knowledge.'
- Shaykh Abdullah Adhami




Who does greater evil than he who is reminded of the signs of the Lord, then turns away from them?
- Qur'an, 32:22




The Qur'an guides you to the recognition of your illnesses
and to their remedies.
Your illness are your sins,
and your medicine is seeking Allah's Forgiveness.
- Qatadah




"We need spirited, energetic and strong young people whose hearts are filled with life, enthusiasm, zeal and dynamism; whose souls are full of ambition, aspiration and vigor and have great goals, rising and aspiring to reach them until they eventually arrive at their destination."
- Hasan al-Banna




"The word "shams" (sun) is feminine, and "qamar" (moon) is masculine. The sun burns itself out to give light and life to everything around, and the moon is muneer, meaning it reflects the light. Within itself it has no light; it radiates the brilliance of the sun. So when we shine as men, the implication is that we are reflecting the glorious light of our women. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'aala be pleased with them."
- Shaykh Abdullah Adhami




If you do not think well of Him because His qualities are beautiful then think well of Him because of the way He treats you.
- ibn Ata'llah




Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.




I know of nothing more useful to you than four matters: surrender to Allah, to humbly entreat Him, to think the best of Him, and to perpetually renew your repentance to Him, even if you should repeat a sin seventy times in a day.
- ibn Ata'illah




Your loud voice is not proof of the depth of your knowledge, for an empty utensil makes more noise than a full one




And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.




If you ask, ask Allah and if you seek help, seek help from Allah.
Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[at-Tirmidhi, Ahmad]




Abu Suhayb Sinaan (radiAllahu anhu) narrated that Rasulullah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) said:
"How amazing is the case of a believer;there is good for him in everything,and this charactristic is exclusively for him alone. If he experiences something good he is thankful and that is good for him; and if he comes across some diversity,he is patient and that is good for him."
[Muslim]




Whoever makes a show of his good deeds so that people will respect him, Allah Ta'ala will show what is truly in his heart.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim]




"There are two kinds of action in this world: the successful and the unsuccessful. Now unconsidered, hasty action, driven by passion rather than wisdom, tends to be unsuccessful, and the more emotionally involved one is in a particular action, the more likely one is to fail. To put this in its simplest terms, action must be rooted in contemplation. Contemplation in its turn demands detachment, that detachment which every Muslim should have at his disposal if he is fully aware of life’s brevity, aware of Divine Judgment, aware of the overwhelming presence of Allah (SWT). Here, it seems to me, virtue and practical necessity come together. The more we act as we should, the more likely we are to succeed"
- Gai Eaton [from Muslims Today]




A leading scholar of Basra visited Rabi'a al-Adawiyya while she was ill.
ting beside her pillow, the scholar spoke about how terrible the world was. In reply, Rabi`a told him:
"You love the world very dearly. If you did not love the world, you would not mention it so much. It is always the purchaser who first disparages what he wants to buy. If you were done with the world, you would not mention it either for good or evil. As it is, you keep mentioning it because, as the proverb says, whoever loves a thing mentions it frequently."
- Rabi'a al-Adawiyya




And God wants to turn unto you in His mercy, whereas those who follow [only] their own lusts want you to drift far away from the right path. God wants to lighten your burdens: for man has been created weak.
- Qur'an, surah an-Nisa, 4:27-28




Dont fret about your affairs, leave it in His hands. Do you think if He wants it for you, anyone can stop it? Or ir He doesnt want it for you anyone can Grant it? Dont look to anyone for your needs, for the One who created you, knows you.




Advice from Dawud Wharnsby Ali to a young sister wondering what to be when she grows up:

Don�t grow up my friend..... Just grow BETTER with time and grow more experienced with age. Keep being passionate about whatever you do.... keep trying new things.... keep patient and keep trying your best. When your passion starts to fade.... stop and re-assess who you are, what you are doing and where your path is leading. The path to God is straight through willful surrender to God... we know that from Quran....but the paths of life we walk are adventurous and twisty....if, that is we WANT them to be.




Seek the fellowship of those who enjoy fellowship with the Lord
- Abd al-Qadir Jilani (rahimullah)
['The Sublime Revelation (Al-Fath ar-Rabbani)' trans by Muhtar Holland (Al-Baz Publishing, Houston, 1992), p. 426-8]




We must begin looking at each other as brothers and sisters...and not walking brochures. We must see each other�s strengths and encourage those strengths....We must see each others weaknesses and be patient with those weaknesses... sometimes even look beyond what we see as "weaknesses" and move on with compassion and love and respect. That takes true faith.
- Dawud Wharnsby Ali




He who knows himself, knows His Lord.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




It is far better to live like a lion for a day then to live like a jackal for hundred years.
- Tipu Sultan




Our problem is one of spirituality.
If a man comes to speak to me about
the reforms to be undertaken in the
Muslim world, about political strategies
and of great geo-strategic plans, my
first question to him would be whether
he performed the dawn prayer in its time
- Said Ramadan, son of Hassan al Banna




True knowledge is not mentioned in relation
to how much you memorise and then narrate,
but rather, true knowledge is
an expression of piety
(protecting oneself from what Allah (awj) prohibited
and acting upon what He mandated
- Ibn Mas'ud (radiAllahu anhu)




A pirate was captured and brought before Alexander the Great.
Alexander asked the pirate:
'How dare you molest the people?'
The pirate replied: 'And how dare you molest the entire world? I am called a thief because I do it with a little ship only. You do it with a great navy and you are called an Emperor!'




Don't look down on anyone uless you are helping them up.




Seven days without prayers makes one WEAK.








The essence of knowledge is to know
what obedience and worship are
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Education is our passport to the future,
for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today
- El-Malik el-Shabbaz (Malcolm X)




Never forget that turning a blind eye
to oppression
and watching from the sidelines
is itself opression
- Harun Yahya




Whatever the situation may be, in the recollection of death there is reward and merit. For even the man engrossed in the world benefits from it by acquiring an aversion to this world, since it spoils his contentment and the fullness of his pleasure; and everything which spoils for man his pleasures and his appetites is one of the means of deliverance.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali
['The Remembrance of Death & the Afterlife' Ihya Ilum Ud Din]




It is indeed surprising that a man inspite of his belief in the Fire of Jahannum is still able to laugh, and inspite of his belief in Maut he is able to be happy. Inspite of believing in the Reckoning, he commits evil deeds. Inspite of believing in Taqdeer, he grieves. Inspite of observing the world with its changes, he feels contented with it. Inspite of believing in Jannat, he refrains from righteous deeds. - Nabi Musa (alayhis salam)
[the majlis]




Meet people in such a manner that if you die,
they should weep for you,
and if you live,
they should long for you
- Ali (radi Allahu anhu)




The person I like most is the one who points out my defects
- Umar (radiAllahu anhu)




O people who take pleasure in a life that will vanish,
falling in love with a fading shadow is sheer stupidity
- Ibn al-Qayyim




Once Rabia al-Basri was sitting in company with some people who were talking of the world reproachfully. She said,
'Do not talk of the world. Do not talk of it even disparagingly. For, your talking of it shows that you consider it to be worth talking about, and something of consequence. If it were of no consequence in your sight, you would never have liked to make a mention of it. (For, who would talk about the filth that men excrete?)'
- from Fazaile Sadaqaat, Ch6 - Virtues of Spending in the Way of Allah




Knowledge is taken from breath,
not lives in a book
- Sahykh Hamza Yusuf




Only that which was effective for the first of this community will be effective for the last of it
- Imam Malik (rahimullah)




Intention is the measure for rendering actions true, so that,
where intention is sound, action is sound,
and where it is corrupt, then action is corrupt
- Imam an-Nawawi (rahimullah)




When the inward is good the outward is also inevitably so, for the outward always follows the inward, whether good or evil.
- Imam Abdullah ibn Alawi al Haddad




Whoever desires to purify his heart,
then let him prefer Allah to his desires
- Ibn al-Qayyim




A tree, freshly rooted, may be pulled up by one man on his own.
Give it time, and it will not be moved,
even with a crane
- Saadi al-Shiraz




Make no friendship with an elephant keeper
If you have no room to entertain an elephant
- Saadi al-Shiraz




It is reported from the famous worshiper Rabi'ah al-Adawiyya (radiAllahu anha) that she said: "I have never heard the adhaan except that I remember the caller who will announce the Day of Resurrection, and I never see the falling snow except that I imagine the flying pages of the records of peoples deeds (on that day), and I never see swarms of locusts except that I think about the Great Gathering on the Last Day."
- Rabi'ah al-Adawiyya (radiAllahu anha)
- Ibn Al-Jawzi, Sifat As-Safwah 2/433.




Do not fix hopes on your health, and do not laugh away life.
Remember how they walked and now all their joints lie separately,
and the tongue with which they talked lightly
is eaten away by the worms
- Abu Hamid al Ghazali




To prove that it is not men who make religion true,
we must prove that religion can make men true




If someone wants to know what position he enjoys in the eyes of God,
he has only to look at what place he gives to God (in his heart and life)
- Hakim




He who wishes that people always remember him with goodness is neither God-fearing nor sincere.
- Shaykh Ibrahim ibn Adham




“Many times I heard Imam Ahmad saying (when asked to give his opinion) on controversial scholarly issues ‘I do not know.’” - Abu Dawud (ra)




Being married forces you to fine tune those not-so-great-aspects of yourself and to strive to be better. Love comes in here too; when you are in a loving relationship (and in love and loved); you have this amazing reservoir of energy within you that allows you to flourish, nurture and improve. It brings out the best in you and makes you strive to be better because someone cares and loves you; and vice versa. It is a little like how we instinctively react to another's perception of us, when they think well of us and believe in us, we want to do even better; but when they disparage us we will get defensive and withdraw.




Do not sit idle, for indeed death is seeking you
- Hasan al-Basri




Why do you seek more knowledge when you pay no heed to what you already know?




The righteous salaf were as fearful of their good deeds being squandered, or not being accepted, as the present generation is certain that their neglect will be forgiven
- Hasan al-Basri




Whoever does not thank people, does not thank God.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 897]




All of them worship out of fear of the Fire and see salvation as a generous portion, Or seek to dwell in the Garden and to relax in meadows and drink of Salsabil. I have no opinion of Gardens or Fire. I do not seek any recompense for my love.
- a sufi




Islam teaches that God is one and only reality. Not just that there is only one God but that nothing else really exists! We have made �gods� of money, status, name, fame and many other concerns that are only transient, temporal and incapable of giving us the lasting peace that we all seek.




I know that societies often have killed people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America, then, all credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
- El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X),
(last words of his autobiography)




People count with self-satisfaction the number of times they have recited the name of God on their prayer beads, but they keep no beads for reckoning the number of idle words they speak.
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali




When you notice in a person some manifest act of obedience to Allah, and some secret act of disobedience, you might regard the act of obedience as showing off or hypocrisy, and the disobedience as the genuine trait of that person. Justice demands from you otherwise.




Your desire to withdraw from everything
when Allah has involved you in the world of means
is a hidden appetite.
Your desire for involvement with the world of means
when Allah has withdrawn you from it
is a fall from high aspiration.
- ibn 'Ajiba




An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
- Mahatma Gandhi




Remember your contemporaries who have passed away and were your age. Remember the honors and fame they earned, the high posts they held, and the beautiful bodies they possessed. Today all of them are turned to dust. They have left orphans and widows behind them, their wealth is being wasted, and their houses turned into ruins.
No sign of them is left today, and they lie in dark holes underneath the earth.
Picture their faces before your mind's eye and ponder.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




You possess only whatever will not be lost in a ship wreck.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Till man destroys "self" he is no true friend of God.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




For those who realize that everything is from God, everything is the same.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




I went to Yale, and I didn't even know they had a library. I was there seven years. I never saw a library.
- George 'Dubya' Bush [As quoted in the book 'Living History' by Hilary Clinton]




If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam
- George Bernard Shaw




The realization of 'La ilaha illa Allah' is one of the states of the heart that can be neither expressed by the tongue nor thought out by the mind.
- Ibn Ata'ala




God places the heaviest burden on those who can carry its weight.




Eventhough you are not equipped,
keep searching:
equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.
Whoever you see engaged in search,
become her friend and cast your head in front of her,
for choosing to be a neighbour of seekers,
you become one yourself;
protected by conquerors,
you will yourself learn to conquer.
If an ant seeks the rank of Solomon,
don't smile contemptuously upon its quest.
And of all your skills, and wealth and handicraft,
Weren't they first merely a thought and a quest?
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi
[Mathnawi]




It was once said to Imam Abu Hanifa (rahimahullah), "In such and such a mosque there is a circle that discusses fiqh (lit. the "understanding of fine points of the religion")". He asked, "Do they have a master over them?" and they said no. He said, "They will never understand"
- Ibn Muflih, al-Adab al-shariyya wa al-minah al-mariyya. 3 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Cairo: Maktaba Ibn Taymiya, 1398/1978, 3.374




Keep the minds of people focussed on chaotic events and talk that polarize and divide them in the outer world and they will forget who they really are; they will loose the contact with their innermost self; they will lose contact with their own soul. It is all about creating chaos and disorder to distract peoples mind from far more important happenings on a spiritual level.




I am a bird of God's garden
and I do not belong to this dusty world
For a day or two they have put me here
in this cage of my own body
I did not come here of my own
I will not return of my own
to my own country.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi
[A Bird In God's Garden]




How should we not put our trust in Allah when He hath shown us our ways? We surely will endure the hurt ye do us. In Allah let the trusting put their trust
- Qur'an, 14:12




All humans are dead except those who have knowledge; and all those who have knowledge are asleep, except those who do good deeds; and those who do good deeds are deceived, except those who are sincere; and those who are sincere are always in a state of worry.
- Imam Shafi (rahimullah)




May Allah steal from you All that steals you from Him.
- Rabi'a al-Adawiyya




This life is not real. I conquered the world and it did not bring me satisfaction.
-- Muhammad Ali (Boxing champion)




Allah guards the justice loving government, even if it is the government of non-Muslims, and destroys the tyrant government, even if it is the government of Muslims.
- Ibn Taymiyyah




What you love to have with you in the Hereafter you should advance today,
and what you hate to have with you, you should abandon today.
- Salman ibn Dinar (radiAllahu anhu)




Actions are merely propped-up shapes.
Their life-breath is the presence of the secret of sincerity in them.
- Shaykh Zarruq




The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe before it's gone.
- Jalaluddin Rumi
[from 'The Essential Rumi' - Coleman Barks]




Beauty is a King that needs to be obeyed - Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller




We ought not to be embarrassed of appreciating the truth and of obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. Nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself, and there is no deterioration of the truth, nor belittling either of one who speaks it or conveys it
- Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi




If your busy with yourself now,
you will be busy with yourself then.
If you are busy with God now,
you will be with Him then.
- Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali




I looked at all friends, and did not find a better friend than safeguarding the tongue. I thought about all dresses, but did not find a better dress than piety. I thought about all types of wealth, but did not find a better wealth than contentment in little. I thought of all types of good deeds, but did not find a better deed than offering good advice. I looked at all types of sustenance, but did not find a better sustenance than patience.
- Umar (radiAllahu anhu)




If you knew what I know, you would go out to the jungle, weeping and crying and leave your property unguarded. But your hearts are heedless of the requirements of the Hereafter and you have, before you, worldly hopes and aspirations. That is why the world has become your master and all your activities are directed towards it; you have reduced yourself to a condition of stark ignorance.
- Abu Darda (radiAllahu anhu
[from Fazaile Sadaqaat, Ch6]




Dear friend,
Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it dean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




What can my enemies do to me? My paradise is in my heart, it is with me wherever I go. To imprison me is to provide me with seclusion. To send me into exile is to send me away in the Path of Allah. And to kill me is to make me a martyr.
- Ibn Taymeeyah




Whoever is not made glorified by taqwa can find no glory.
- Imam Shafi' (rahimullah)




O God,
You know that the only thing I want in this life
Is to be obedient to Your command.
Even the living sight of my eyes
Is service at your court
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given.




Your Lord creates and chooses whatever He wills. The choice is not theirs
- Qur'an, 28:68




Give up what appears to be doubtful for what is certain.
Truth brings peace of mind, and deception doubt.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [as reported by Hasan ibn 'Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)]




I seek forgiveness from Allah for the lack of my sincerity when I say I seek the forgiveness of Allah
- Rabia al-Adawiyyah




If those who do not possess knowledge avoid the scholarly discussions, disagreement will end.
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Islam is not just a religion. Islam is everything.
- Yusuf Islam




The sign of God�s love is to bestow three attributes on His lover: A generosity like that of the sea, a kindness like that of the sun, and, a humility like that of the earth.
- Bayazid




O Lord...
Once I wanted You so much
I didn't even dare walk past Your house--
And now
I am not even worthy to be let in
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




Shall I tell you who is kept away from Hell and from whom Hell is kept away? From everyone who is gentle and kindly, approachable and of an easy disposition - Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1315]




My request is not for bliss of the Garden. I only desire to see You.
- ibn al-Farid




When people have despaired of reaping a harvest, God sends down rain. He spreads his blessing across the world; he is the glorious guardian. Look at how he created the heavens and the earth, and all the creatures that he has spread across the earth. The creation is merely one among many of his signs. If he wanted, he could gather the heavens and the earth and all the creatures into one place.
- Qur'an, Surah Ash-Shura, 42:27-29




The real work is in the Heart:
Wake up your Heart! Because when the heart is completely awake,
Then it needs no Friend.
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




Our hearts are filled with such ease and contentment that if kings came to know of it they would come with armies to rob us of this wealth.




The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.
- Roy Hattersley




This Qur'an guides you to the recognition of your illnesses and to their remedies. Your illnesses are your sins, and your medicine is seeking Allah's forgiveness.
- Qatadah (radiAllahu anhu)




Of all the follies the greatest is to love the world.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




You are not aware of the consequences that would result (if you were granted what you desire) because what you seek might be to your detriment. (O soul) be conscious that your Master is more aware about your well-being than you are.
- Ibn Al-Jawzi




Amongst the signs of success at the end is the turning to God at the beginning.




In the intricate paths of life when difficulties and hardships confront a man, and the darkness of difficulty and suffering becomes long, it is patience only that acts like a light for a Muslim, that keeps him safe from wandering here and there, and saves him from the muddy marsh of disappointment, desperation and frustration.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali
[Muslim's Character]




It is reported from Abu Hurayrah (radiAllahu anhu) that he said, "Shall I not point you to comfortable proceeds?" People responded, "And what is that o Abu Hurayrah?" He replied, "Fasting in winter."




It is reported from 'Umar (radiAllahu anhu) that he said: "Winter is booty for the devout worshippers."
The Arabs used to refer to matters which were relatively easy to gain as being cool. In this narration, the relative ease of fasting in winter and its consequent reward is likened to acquiring war proceeds without the heat of violence.




It is reported from 'Ubayd ibn 'Umayr (radiAllahu anhu) that he said: "It used to be said when winter came: O people of the Qur`an, the night has become long so you can pray (more) and the day has become short for you to fast."
- Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat Al-Awliyaa`




A muslim must treat his brother [and sisters too] in a good way, he should do good things for him and keep him away from harm. When he meets him, he should have a smiling face. He should accept the good things from his brother and forgive his evil deeds. He should not bear on his brother with more than that which he is capable.
- Al Jazairy
[Minhaj Al Muslim, Chapter on etiquette]




Imam Bukhari (rahimullah) was so pious that he could truthfully say "I have never told a lie"




Patiently restrict yourselves to the sunnah, stop where the people stopped, say what they said, avoid what they avoided. Take to the path of the salaf, for indeed what was sufficient for them was sufficient for you.
- Imam al-Awza'ii (radiAllahu anhu)
(from Al-Hujjah of Ismail Abu Fadhl (6/A-B))




Knowledge is not to be taken from four types of people: a foolish person who openly acts foolish, even if he reports the most narrations; an adherent of bid’ah who calls to his desires; a person who lies, even if I don’t accuse him of lying in hadith; and a righteous pious worshiper who does not accurately retain what he narrates.
- Imam Malik (rahimullah)
(from Al-Dhahabi, Siyar A’lam Al-Nubala` in his biography of Imam Malik)




When the time for prayer is at hand,
I make a proper ablution,
go to the spot where I attend to pray
and sit there until all my limbs and organs are in a collected state.

Then I stand up to perform my prayer,
placing the Ka'bah between my brows,
the bridge over Hell beneath my feet,
Paradise to my right
and Hell to my left,
and the Angel of Death behind me,
thinking all the while that this is my final prayer.
Then I stand between hope and fear.

I carefully pronounce "Allahu Akbar!"
Then I recite the Qur'an harmoniously,
bow in humility
and prostrate myself submissively.
I then sit back on my left haunch,
spreading out the left foot,
raising my right foot on the toes.
I follow this with sincerity.
Then I wonder
whether or not
my prayer
has been accepted.
- Hatim bin Al-Asam
(from 'Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship' - by Al Ghazali)




A man without any history is like a tree without roots - El-Malik el-Shabbaz (Malcolm X)




Poverty is not for the sake of hardship. No, it is there because nothing exists but God� Poverty unlocks the door -- what a blessed key!
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Live for this life as though you live in it forever and live for the life to come as though you die tomorrow
- 'Amr ibn al 'Aas




The death of the self lies in the life of the heart
- Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (rahimullah)




Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.




If you are proud of your descent from virtuous ancestors, how empty their virtue will leave your hands if you yourself are not virtuous. How little pride your ancestors will have in you in this world and the next if you do no good! All men are children of Adam whom Allah created by His own Hands, giving him paradise for a dwelling place and letting His angels bow down before him. But how little is the advantage from this since all the vices dwell in mankind and all the wicked impious people are among their number.
- Ibn Hazm
[Kitab al-Akhlaq wa al-Siyar fi Mudawat al-Nufus]




Historically whoever advocates truth always suffers. I am just a fighter for the truth. Our truths are universal
- Merve Kavaci (former Turkish Parliamentarian - who was prevented from taking oath in Parliament because of her hijab)




When you want to mention your companion's faults, remember your own faults
- Ibn Abbas (radiAllahu anhu)




Everything in this world happens for a reason yet nothing in this world comes free�Hard work, endurance, determination, persistence, and strong will are key� But without faith you can only go so far before you lose yourself� We are all hearts, minds, bodies, and souls searching for something - you are not the only one� So search, and you shall discover, look, and you shall certainly find, read and you shall only behold that the most logical of all answers was always right there before your very eyes�
- Moez Masoud
(TV presenter of 'Parables in the Qur�an' and 'Stairway to Paradise')




I once saw a Christian monk gaunt through self-sacrifice and doubled over by the fear of God. I asked him to show me the path of God. He replied, "If you knew God you would know the way to Him. I worship Him although I do not know Him; you disobey Him though you know Him. With knowledge comes fear, yet you are self-assured; with heresy ignorance, yet I feel fear within me." His words moved me so deeply that since then I have refrained from wrongdoing.
- Abd'Allah bin Mubarak al-Marwazi, "The Kashf al-Mahjub"




Man who is created alone should be aware that he will also die alone. Yet during his life, he lives almost addicted to posessions...
the only assest one can take with him when one dies is one's belief or disbelief
- Harun Yahya (famous Turkish author)




Whoever travels without a guide, needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




Astride a horse I am not, nor camel-like carry a load,
Subjects I have none, nor follow any sultan's code;
I worry not for what exists, nor fret for what is lost,
I breathe with extreme ease, and live at very little cost.
- Saadi al-Shiraz




How many lessons there are and how little they are taken
- Ali ibn abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Who are we to wish for Paradise? It will be enough if God spares us his wrath.
- Imam Abu Hanifah (rahimullah)




When offended always consider the source.....




Patience is a virtue that few have earned...




The life of this world and the hereafter, in the heart of a person are like the two scales of a balance,
when one becomes heavier, the other becomes lighter
- 'Amr ibn Abdullah




Your souls are precious and can only be equal to the price of Paradise, therefore sell them only at that price
- Ali ibn abu-Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.




In the time of the Rasulullah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam), tasawwuf was a reality without a name.
Today tasawwuf is a name, but few know its reality.




No one who possesses snow would find any hardship in exchanging it for jewels and pearls. This world is like snow exposed to sun, which continues to melt until it disappears altogether, while the next life is like a precious stone that never passes away.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Fight against your ego with the four swords of training:
eat little,
sleep little,
speak little,
and be patient when people harm you...
Then the ego will walk the paths of obedience, like a fleeing horseman in the field of battle.
- Yahya ibn Mu'adh al-Razi




A human-being is not a human-being while his tendencies include self-indulgence, covetousness, temper and attacking other people
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali




On Being thankful
It is said that once Hasan al-Basri had a very sharp headache, so he tied a bandana over his head. Rabia Basri saw him and inquired the cause for the bandana, to which Hasan al-Basri told her of the headache.
Rabia Basri asked him if this headache is something he gets often. Hasan al-Basri replied that Allah has blessed him with good health and it is after many years that he had a headache this severe.

"Is it not strange that Allah gave you good health for years, and then when He afflicts you with some pain, you wear a banner on your head to advertise your pain?"

Hasan al-Basri says that after that day he never ever complained of any harship he faced.




Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Through prayer human beings worship absolute truth, and seek an eternal reward. Prayer is the foundation-stone of religion; and religion is the means by which the soul is purified of all that pollutes it. Prayer is the worship of the first cause of all things, the supreme ruler of all the world, the source of all strength. Prayer is the adoration of the one whose being is necessary.
- Ibn Sina, �Kitab al-Najat�
[ from "366 Readings From Islam," trans. Robert Van der Weyer]




I am a burning candle;
You are the morning light,
If I do not see You, I burn;
if I see You, I vanish.
This is my condition
in separation and closeness.
I can bear neither separation nor proximity.
- Sufi poem




If something is meant to go elsewhere,
it will never come your way,
but if it is yours by destiny,
from you it cannot flee.




Your children are not your children:
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which
You cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
- Khalil Jibran




Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possiblity.




Beware of this world, for it is sweet and tempting
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




When you resolve to become pious, the devil in your nature cries out at you, "Tread not those paths, O confused one; distress and poverty will overcome you. You will be despised, let down by friends, you will regret it." Dread of the devil has bound their souls; the cries of the devil are the drover of the damned; the call of the Lord is a guardian of the saints.
- Jalaluddin Rumi
[Mathnawi]




So many Muslims are concerned about 'iman' (faith) as a conception and as a point of argument in debates, but few Muslims even comprehend the depth of 'iman' which is total conviction (yaqeen).
It is the latter which the Sahabahs sought, attained, and through which, gained victory.
- Shaykh Hasan Ali




The Muslims have got Islam as a legacy, hence they fail to recognise its value
- Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall




How should Spring bring forth a garden on hard stone?
Become earth, you may grow flowers of many colours.
For you have been a heart-breaking rock.
Once, for the sake of experiment, be earth!
- Jalaluddin Rumi
Soften your heart [I, 1911-2]




O my son, let not the cock be more clever than you - it calls at the early hours of dawn while you are asleep
- Prophet Luqman (alayhis salam), advising his son




Sincerity is not achieved until people do not see and until he fails to think of people.
- a sufi




Your Nafs is just like a suckling child. If you do not take the pains to wean him, he will yearn for his mother's breast even when he's grown up. Therefore you should not try to satisfy your lust by indulging in sins. This will only increase the desire for more sins. The same is the case with the disease of gluttony. The more a person eats, the more his hunger increases.
- Imam Busairi




(Offer greetings to each other) and rancor will disappear. Give gifts to each other and love each other, and hatred will disappear.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Al-Muwatta Vol 47, Hadith 16]




Your nafs (soul/desires) is your first battlefield. If you are victorious over it, then you will find the other battlefields easier.
- Imam Hasan al Banna




Anyone who rises above the things of this world, to wich you kneel, is mightier than you.
- Ibn Hazm




If there is someone in need whom you wish to help, whether the initiative came from him or from you, do no more than he expects of you, not what you might personally wish to do. If you overstep the mark, you will not deserve thanks, but blame from him and others and you will attract hostility, not friendship.
- Ibn Hazm
[Kitab al-Akhlaaq wa al-Siyar]




It is striking that today, we Muslims read so many books and still have no result of any revival;
yet the sahabahs revived a great portion of the world by reading only ONE book in their time:
the Holy Qur'an.
The fact is that they did not just read it
but practiced every bit of it.
It was enough then - and is still enough today.
- Shaykh Hasan Ali




Every man dies, but not every man truly lives




If someone devotes himself entirely to Allah (awj), He will provide him with everything he needs, and if a person devotes himself entirely to this world, Allah will leave him in its core
- Muhyuddin, Abdul-Qadir Jilani




Among the principles of the Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah lie the attitude of peace and purity of their heart and tongue towards the Sahaba (Companions) of the Prophet (saw).
- ibn Taymiyyah
['Fundamental Beliefs of Islam' Sharh al-Aqeedat-il-Wasitiyah]




Islam is a way of life which opens the heart to the meaning of existence. Thus any increase of outward splendor is usually a sign of a decrease in inward illumination
- Ahmad Thompson [from 'Islam in Andalus']




You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom
- El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)




If you want to talk to Allah,
perform Salah.
If you want Allah to talk to you,
read Qur'an.




Verily, the next life is better for you than this life
- Qur'an, 93:4




Action is the biggest measurement of knowledge




All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen




Dont despair. Allah is there.
- Mutma'inaa




There is only what He wills.
So leave your cares and abandon them.
Leave your preoccupations
which distract you and you will have rest.
- Yaqut al-'Arishi




'If you see my Ummah afraid of telling the oppressor: You are an oppressor, it is farewell to the ummah'
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Ahmad, Tabarani, Al-Hakim and Al-Baihaqi]




I was harsh on you, but for your sake.




Whoever determines the truth from people alone
will remain lost in the plains of bewilderment.
Rather, know the truth, and you will know its people.
- Imam abu Hamid al-Ghazali
Ihya Ulum al-Din, 'The Book of Knowledge'




Be hard on yourself, easy on others.
- Imam Shafi' (rahimullah)




I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.
- Muhammad Ali (World Boxing Champion)




The Ulema are the successors of the Prophets (as). The Prophets did not leave dirhams. They only left knowledge; and that is a great fortune for those who grasp it.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




Two kinds of people live a life without care: one kind are extremely worthy of praise, the other kind are extremely worthy of criticism. The first are those who care nothing for the pleasures of the world and the second (i.e. those who are deserving of criticism) care nothing for haya or modesty.
- Ibn Hazm
[Kitab al-Akhlaq wa al-Siyar fi Mudawat al-Nufus]




The rise of Islam offers perhaps the most impressive example in world history of the power of words to alter human behavior in sudden, surprising ways.
- William H. McNeill




If you are not of the righteous, then at least do which the righteous do, and you'll become one of them
- From those who know




Anas (radiAllahu anhu) said: The Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) said:
"None of you Truly believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his child and all the people." Some other reports add: "his life, his wealth and his family." [Sahih Al-Bukhari and Muslim]




Ali ibn Abi Talib (radiAllahu anhu) once said:
"The Holy Prophet is dearer to us than our wealth, our children, our fathers, our forefathers, our mothers and cool water at the time of severe thirst."




Hardship may dishearten at first,
but every hardship passes away.
All despair is followed by hope;
all darkness is followed by sunshine.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi [Mathnawi, 3:2924-25]




If you make dhikr you won't become stressed
If you are getting stressed youre not doing enough dhikr
- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson




Eyes are at rest, the stars are setting.
Hushed are the stirrings of birds in their nests,
Of monsters in the ocean.

You are the Just who knows no change,
The Balance that can never swerve,
The Eternal which never passes away.

The doors of Kings are bolted now and guarded by soldiers.
Your Door is open to all who call upon You.

My Lord,
Each love is now alone with his beloved.
And I am alone with You.
-Rabia al-Basri




To completely trust in God is to be like a child who knows deeply that even if he does not call for the mother, the mother is totally aware of his condition and is looking after him.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
- Muhammad Ali [World Boxing Champion]




Do not wrong [others] and you will not be wronged.
- Qur'an [2:279]




Sombody asked Imam Abu Hanifah one day what he thought of the battles between 'Ali and Mu'awiyah. "My mind," replied the Imam, "is always full of fear about things on which I shall be questioned on the Judgement Day. I am sure this is not one of them. So I do not think much about it."




Dear Friend, Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust which has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.
- Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani
[The Secrets of Secrets, p. XLIVII]




Do not allow the fear of people to prevent you from proclaiming the Haqq (the truth of Allah's Deen)
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




If sins had an odour, then nobody would be able to sit with me.
- Muhammad ibn Wasi




If sins had an odour, would you be sitting alone?




The True Ascetic abandons the three 'I's. He does not say "for me," "with me," or "my property." He must not attribute anything to himself.
- Ibn al-Arabi




There is no change away from sin, nor power to remain firm on good,
except through Allah Most High and Almighty
- Imam Al-Tahawi




Whether your destiny is glory or disgrace,
Purify yourself of hatred and love of self.
Polish your mirror; and that sublime Beauty
From the regions of mystery
Will flame out in your heart
As it did for the saints and prophets.
Then, with your heart on fire with that Splendor,
The secret of the Beloved will no longer be hidden.
- Nur al-Din al-Jami
[from 'Perfume of the Desert']




A person is truly a human if he or she learns, and teaches, and inspires others. It is difficult to regard as truly human someone who is ignorant and has no desire to learn.
- Fethullah Gulen




In Allah�s eyes, a knowledgeable person is as superior to any ordinary worshipper as the moon is superior in brilliance to the other heavenly bodies.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




When light engages the heart, it causes an illumation of the path,a purification of the consciousness, an enlightenment of the intellect and an establishment of the foundations of dhikr and shukr and of beautiful worship...
- Habib Umar Bin Hafiz




Rabiah al-Adwiyyah�s servant narrates:
Rabiah�s permanent, life-long practice was to perform Salat the entire night. After sunrise she would lay for a short while on her musalla. When her eyes opened, she would be in a state of fear. Reprimanding herself, she would say: �How long will you sleep and refrain from ibadat. Soon you will be overtaken by such sleep from which only the Trumpet (soor) will awaken you.� This remained her condition until her death. When her time of maut was imminent she instructed me not to publicise her death. (Only those directly involved in her burial were informed). She further instructed me to prepare her Kafan from her simple cloak which she used to wear at the time of Tahajjud. Thus she was buried in that cloak and another cloak which she used to wear. The night after her burial, I saw Rabiah in a dream clad in the most beautiful silken garments. I asked what had happened to her old cloaks which were used as Kafan. She said: �It was removed from me, sealed and delivered to the loftiest heavenly realm (A`la Il-liyyeen). It will be added to my deeds on the Day of Qiyamah. In place of it I have been dressed with the garments you are seeing now.�
I said: �Tell me of something by which I can gain Divine Proximity.� She said: �Thikr in abundance. In the grave (Aalam-e-Barzakh) you will be envied.�
[from 'Orchards of Love' - stories of the Auliyah]




Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little then to break
- Jane Wells




The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers.
- Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall




Whoever builds his faith exclusively on demonstrative proofs and deductive arguments, builds a faith on which it is impossible to rely. For he is affected by the negativities of constant objections. Certainty (al-yaqin) does not derive from the evidences of the mind but pours out from the depths of the heart.
- Ibn Arabi




Let not the vicissitude (of the success) of those who disbelieve, in the land, deceive thee (O Mohammad). It is but a brief comfort. And afterward their habitation will be hell, an ill abode. - Qur'an, Al-Imran: 196-7




O you who reproach me, regarding my love, excuse me.
From me to you if you do justice, you would not reproach me.
My state (of love) has been expressed to you, (now) my secret is no longer concealed.
- From the Burda of Imam al Busiri




Do not try to run away from trials and tribulations, but endure them with patience. They cannot be avioded, and there is nothing for it but to endure them with patience, How can you expect the whole of this world, and all that has been created therein, to undergo change and transformation just to suit your convenience? The Prophets are the best of all creatures, yet they have always had to suffer afflication and so it is for their followers, those who tread in their footsteps as they walk along their highway, emulating their example.
- Muhyuddin Abdul Qadir Jilani




Ikhlas is to forget the vision of creation
by constantly looking at the Creator.
- Abu Uthman




I strike with chastisement whom I will,
but my mercy embraces all things
- Al Qur'an, 7: 156




And love your Lord by serving Him
For lovers are but servants of the Beloved
- a poet




Ease and hardship are the feathers that give strength to the wings of your faith so that your heart and your innermost being can use them to fly to the door of your Lord, Almighty and Glorious is He.

How can you lay claim to faith, when you have no patience at all. Surely you must have heard the saying of the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him "patience is to faith, as the head is to the body".
- Sheikh Abdul Qadir al Jilani
[Jala' Al Khawatir (Removal of Cares)]




Allah's Generosity is connected to gratitude, and gratitude is linked to increase in His generosity. The generosity of Allah will not stop increasing unless the gratitude of the servant ceases
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you're a vegetarian.




The death of the self lies in the life of the heart.
- Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (rahimullah)




Actions are but lifeless forms whose soul is the secret of sincerity in them
- ibn Ata'illah




Whoever is sitting with friends
is in the midst of a flower garden,
though he may be in the fire.
Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire,
even though he is in the midst of a garden.
- Jalaluddin Rumi
"Mathnawi" [IV, 1976-1978]




This world in comparison with the world to come, is the same as if one of you were to put his finger in the ocean.
Consider how much you would have when you pulled it out
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




How can a sane man be conceited about his spiritual works, when his works are but a gift from Allah and a blessing from Him that he should thank Him for.
- Abu Sulayman al-Darani
[Nata'ij al-afkar, 1.114]




The soul constantly cries out, tears constantly flow and the heart constantly breaks into pieces to be united with the Almighty and His Messenger, but the mind says who are you anyway your body is weak and you are full of fear.




In my 39 years on this earth, the Holy city of Makkah had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of all and felt like a complete human being
- El Hajj el Malik al-Shabbaz (Malcolm X)




Peace of heart comes from a heart free of anxiety.
Anxiety is caused by the weight of all that is material.
Material weigh the heart down and prevent it from soaring.
Soaring of the heart comes from remembering Allah (Ta'ala)




The relation of patience to iman is like the relation of the head to the body. If the head is chopped off, the body becomes useless.� Then he raised his voice and said: �Certainly, the one who has no patience has no iman, and patience is like a riding-beast that nevers gets tired
- Ali ibn Abu Talib
from 'Patience and Gratitude' By Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah




Arguing is a harsh way of dealing with differences. You will hardly ever find it mentioned in the Qur`an or Sunnah except that it is either censured, or qualified by the phrase, "except in the best way".




Nothing is difficult, if you seek it through your Lord;
nothing is easy, if you seek it through your self.
- Ibn Ata'illah What you love to have with you in the hereafter, you should advance today, and what you hate to have with you, you should abandon today
- Salman ibn Dinar




Do not dispute with anyone in any matter as far as possible. For in argumentation lies much harm and its evil is greater than its benefit.
-Imam al- Ghazali




It is related that Abu 'Uthman was once riding in the street when a pot of ashes was thrown down upon him. He dismounted, and prostrated himself to God in gratitude, and then brushed the ashes from his clothes without saying a word. 'Shall you not rebuke them?' he was asked, but he replied, 'A man who deserves hellfire but receives only ashes cannot fairly be angry'.
[Signs of good character]




Do not ask, 'Where is God?', but ask, 'where am I?'




Get used to a rough life,
for luxury does not last forever.
- Umar ibn al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu)




To blame others for our misfortunes is always a victory for the nafs.
- Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad




Whoever sees sincerity in his sincerity, his sincerity is itself in need of sincerity. The destruction of every sincere person lies in his sincerity, (he is destroyed) to the extent that he sees sincerity in himself. When he abandons seeing sincerity in himself he will be sincere and purified.
- a Salaf




There are four types of oceans. Passions are the ocean of sins, the self (nafs) is the ocean of lust, death is the ocean of life, and the grave is the ocean of distress
- Umar (radiAllahu anhu)




When my heart became constricted and my paths became narrow
I took my hope in Your pardon and forgiveness as an opening and an escape
My sins seemed very great to me but when I compared them to Your forgiveness
I found Your forgiveness to be greater
- Imam Shafi' (rahimullah)




The highest person is he who is of most use to humankind.
- Ali bin Abi Talib, "Masters of the Path"




Four things come not back -- the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
- Arab proverb




O Allah! How can I ask you for any favours knowing how disobedient I am, but how can I not ask you for anything knowing how Generous You are?




Truth is Timeless,
and returning to Truth
is better than continuing in Falsehood
- Umar ibn Al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu)




If you devote yourself to God in this world, He will admit you among His chosen servants in the hereafter. Such devotion, however, demands sacrifice and self-denial, the two instruments that make union with God possible.




Compared to the best
you're a nobody;
think of yourself as such.




My heart is so small
it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?
"Look," He answered,
"your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world."
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi [from 'Whispers of the Beloved']




"Say: 'Come close, I will recite what your Lord has forbidden you: i. Do not associate anything with Him; ii. And [show] kindness towards both [your] parents. iii. Do not kill your children because of poverty; We shall provide for you as well as for them. iv. Do no indulge in shocking acts which you may practice either openly or keep in secret. v. Do not kill any person whom God has forbidden, except through [due process of] law. He has instructed you in this so that you may use your reason. vi. Do not approach an orphan's estate before he comes of age, except to improve it. vii. Grant full measure and weight in all fairness. We do not assign any person to do more than he can cope with. viii. Whenever you speak, be just even though it concerns a close relative. ix. Fulfill God's agreement. Thus has He instructed you so that you may bear it in mind. x. This is My straight Road, so follow it and do not follow [other] paths which will separate you from His path. Thus has He instructed you so that you may do your duty."
- Qur'an [6: 151-153]
The Ten Commandments




The Orphan is not he who has lost his father, an orphan is he who lacks knowledge and adab




Glory is for none but the learned,
Guided are they - and proofs for seekers of guidance.
Every person is measured based on how much of it (knowledge) he mastered,
The ignorant are to the learned their enemies,
Succeed with knowledge and live energetically forever,
Men are all dead, only the possessors of knowledge are truly alive
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Real knowledge, like everything else of value, is not to be obtained easily.
It must be worked for,
studied for,
thought for,
and, more that all,
must be prayed for.




Be aware of your own worth, use all of your power to achieve it. Create an ocean from a dewdrop. Do not beg for light from the moon, obtain it from the spark within you.
- Muhammad Iqbal




A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship HIM than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell
- C.S.Lewis (author)




O my Lord, whatever share of this world You have bestowed on me, bestow it to my enemies, and whatever share of the next world You have for me, give it to my friends.
You are enough for me.
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




We often mix between what is for Allah's sake and what is for our own sake.




Upon Allah is the bayan (explaining), upon the Messenger is Balagh (conveying) and upon us is tasleem (willingly accepting).
- Imam az-Zuhri




Sometimes in order to help He makes us cry
Happy the eye that sheds tears for His sake
Fortunate the heart that burns for His sake
Laughter always follow tears
Blessed are those who understand
Life blossoms wherever water flows
Where tears are shed divine mercy is shown

- Jalaluddin Rumi




In eloquence there is magic,
in knowledge ignorance,
in poetry wisdom,
and in speech heaviness
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[abu Dawud 41 #4994 - narrated Buraydah ibn al-Hasib]




If knowledge had no other merit than to make the ignorant fear and respect you, and scholars love and honour you, this would be good enough reason to seek after it. Let alone all its other merits in this world and the next.
- Ibn Hizam




O Beloved of Hearts, I beseech only You.
Have pity this day on those who turn to You.
My Hope, my Rest, my Delight,
this heart can love none other but You.
- Rabi'a, "Rabia the Mystic" "Islam teaches that God is one and only reality. Not just that there is only one God but that nothing else really exists! We have made �gods� of money, status, name, fame and many other concerns that are only transient, temporal and incapable of giving us the lasting peace that we all seek."




Patience is of two kinds: patience over what pains you,
and patience against what you covet.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib




If you dont wake up for Fajr, then dont wake up at all
- Hamza Yusuf




Allah�s Generosity is connected to gratitude, and gratitude is linked to increase in His generosity. The generosity of Allah will not stop increasing unless the gratitude of the servant ceases.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




All creatures, day and night, make manifestation of God. Some of them know what they are doing and are aware of their manifesting, while others are unaware. However it may be, God's manifestation is confirmed.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.




The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.




Every utterance that comes forth does so with the vestment of the heart from which it emerged.
- Hikam of Ibn Ibn Ata'illah
[Commentry] It is said, that the tongue translates what is in the heart. If the heart is confused or sick, so are the utterances. If the heart is wholesome and pure, then the utterances are real and appropriate. If you contemplate deeply what is being said, you will come to know the state of the speaker and the extent of his connectedness to the Truth and his position with Allah.




Never be without rememberance of Him, for His rememberance gives strength and wings to the bird of the Spirit.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




Put aside your pride,
Set down your arrogance,
And remember your grave.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib




Today we have the same Qur�an with us. Millions of copies of it are in circulation. Day and night, it is ceaselessly recited. In homes, in mosques, and from pulpits. Voluminous exegetical works exist expounding its meaning. Words pour out incessantly to explain its teachings and to exhort us to live by it.
Yet eyes remain dry, hearts remain unmoved, minds remain untouched, lives remain unchanged. Ignominy and degradation appear to have become the lot of the followers of the Qur�an.
Why? Because we no longer read the Qur�an as a living reality. It is a sacred book, but it tells us something of the past only, concerning Muslims and Kafirs, Jews and Christians, the faithful and the hypocrites, who �once upon a time used to be.�
Khurram Murad, in [Way to the Qur�an]




Hadhrat Ahnaf bin Qais (radiAllahu anhu)said,
"I compared our actions to that of the people of Jannah and I discovered that they by far excelled us; our actions do not compare with theirs. They slept less at night and laboured more in their devotions to Allah. I then compared our actions to that of the people of Jahannum and I discovered that they refuted Allah, His Rasul (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) and Qiyamah. I realised that our actions are not of the standard of the people of Jannah, and [Allah be praised] not like that of the people of Jahannum. I therefore conclude that we are among those about whom Allah Ta'ala says, "Those who mixed a good act with another that was evil.� [Ibn Kahir, 'Ma'ariful Quran' vol.8]




Beware of the flight of Blessings,
For nothing that runs away is returned.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib




People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.




All women are pearls of great value, but some of us have been deceived into doubting the value of our purity. Pearls are priceless and should be protected and guarded from unworthy eyes.




The highest degree of love is Tatayyum (total enthrallment). The lowest degree is �alaqah (attachment), when the heart is attached to the beloved: then comes sabahah (infatuation), when the heart is poured out: then gharam (passion), when love never leaves the heart: then ashaq (ardent love), and finally tatayyum.
- ibn Taymiyyah
[Al-Uboodiyyah]




He does not refuse sustenance to the one who speaks ill of Him. How then could He refuse sustenance to the one whose soul is overflowing with love for Him?
- Rabi'a al-adawiyya
[Rabi'a the Mystic]




O you who complain to people about your misfortunes, what good will it do you to complain to creatures? They can bring you neither benefit nor harm. If you rely on them and associate partners with the Lord of the Truth, they will make you distant from Him, cause you to fall into His displeasure.
- Abdul Qadir Jilani




I swear that ever since the first day You brought me back to life,
The day You became my Friend,
I have not slept -
And even if You drive me from your door,
I swear again that we will never be separated -
Because You are alive in my heart
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




Wisdom is like the rain. Its source is unlimited, but it comes down according to the season. Grocers put sugar in a bag, but their supply of sugar is not the amount in the bag. When you come to a grocer, he has sugar in abundance. But he sees how much money you have brought and gives accordingly. Your currency on this Path is resolution and faith, and you are taught according to your resolution and faith. When you come seeking sugar, they examine your bag to see what its capacity is; then they measure out accordingly.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




Many a spoken word is more peircing than an attack.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib




He who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself.
Only he who combines the two proves true.
Imam Malik (rahimullah)




Actions are merely propped-up shapes.
Their life-breath is the presence of the secret of sincerity in them.
- Ibn Ata'illah Iskandari
[Al-hikam al-'Ata'iyyah]




Jaffer asked Rabia when a devotee might become content with God. She replied, "When his joy in affliciton equals his joy in blessing."
- Abu Makki




Everything that hearts find of worries and sadness is because of what they have been denied of beholding Allah.
- One of the Salaf




Man's fear of Allah is equal to his knowledge of Him, and his renunciation of the life of this world is equal to his desire of the Hereafter.
Whoever acts according to what he knows, Allah will make him successful in what he doesn't know.
And whoever is ill-tempered disgraces his honour, religion and generosity.
- Ibrahim al-Ash'ath




Weep like the waterwheel,
that green herbs may spiring up
from the courtyard of your soul.
If you wish for tears,
have mercy on one who sheds tears;
if you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.
- Jalaluddin Rumi
Soften your heart [I, 821-2]




The soul should take care of the body, just as the pilgrim on his way to Makkah takes care of his camel; but if the pilgrim spends his whole time in feeding and adorning his camel, the caravan will leave him behind, and he will perish in the desert.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali




For the larger interest of humanity, Islamic society presents the safest place on this planet.
- Jermaine Jackson




Money doesnt change people, it only exposes them.




Whoever does not hold his tongue cannot understand his deen.
- Al Hasan al-Basri




And make provision for yourselves; the best provision is taqwa - Quran, 2:197




I don't advise you to mind your life's affairs because I know that you are covetous to do so, but I advise you to mind the affairs of the Hereafter.
Take from this temporary home to the eternal one.
Consider this life as something that you have left, I swear by Allah you will leave it.
Consider death as something that you have tasted, I swear by Allah you will taste it.
And consider the Hereafter as a home that you have visited, I swear by Allah you will be there.
- Ata al Khurasani




Purification of the heart was once described by a scholar.
He gave the analogy of a man who didn�t have a bath for a whole year. So to make himself look clean and presentable, the dirty man decided to put on perfume and wear expensive clothes. Obviously his actions would be futile. He would still reek and smell, right?
Similarly, if we have dirty hearts and we focus on external actions (e.g Salah, fasting etc) our actions would be futile. Hence, tasawwuf and purification of the heart.
If we do not focus on the importance of purifying our hearts, all our external good deeds will be in vain.




Knowledge is proud that it knows so much;
Wisdom is humble that it knows no more.




There are two kinds of speeches and two kinds of silences. Speech is either truth or a falsification, and silence is either fruition or heedlessness. If one speaks the truth, his words are better than his silence, but he who invents falsifications, his silence is better than his speech.




People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.




In the heavens there is calmness
and on the earth there is beauty.
In the gardens there is freshness
and in you there is a sign.
In the sea there is might
and in the air there is nourishment.
Take from all this comfort for your soul
and recovery for your mind.
And do not waste your time by being unmindful,
this will shield you from good
and lead you to evil.
- Hasan al-Banna




A bad attitude spoils a good deed just as vinegar spoils honey
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




Reputation is what men and women think of us;
Character is what God and Angels know of us.




There is only one virtue
and one sin for a soul on the path:
virtue when he is conscious of God
and sin when he is not.
- Abu Hashim Madani




Iman is to believe, even when an overpowering tide of evil surrounds you.
� Imam Anwar al-Awlaki




Tasawwuf: The weakening of the negative aspects of the human soul and the strengthening of its positive aspects.




Do a lot of remembrance of Allah until they say, 'He is mad.'
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Reported by Abu Sa'id al-Khudri in Ahmad, Abu Ya'la and Ibn Hibban]




If your pride leads you to boast,
you will be doubly guilty,
because your intelligence will have shown
that it is incapable of controlling your pride.
- Ibn Hazm




Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge.
Others just gargle.




He whose sin is due to desires, then have hope for him. And he whose sin is due to pride, then fear for him - because Nabi Adam disobeyed due to desire and was forgiven, and Iblis sinned due to pride and was cursed
- Sufyan ibn Uyainah




You say that you are just a body, but inside of you is something greater than the Universe.
- Imam Shafi (rahimullah)




Everyone projects the image of friendship, but true friendship is that friendship which is established for the Pleasure of Allah. A true friend is one who takes no offence when a weakness of his is pointed out. And he too does not hesitate to point out the friend�s weakness and assist him in rectifying it.
- Moulana Yunus Patel saheb




O students at the madrasa,
Everything you learn is mere misgivings.
If your concern is in other than the Beloved,
You shall have no share of the Next Life.
- One of the righteous poets of the spiritual path The world is darkness; knowledge is light; but knowledge without truth is a mere shadow.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Patience which is in remembrance of Him is not bitter;
For bitterness from a friend's hand is sugar.
- Bustan




It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.




Make the remembrance of Allah, my garment, my Lord
Every utterance from my mouth be Your dhikr, my Lord.
Instead of breath, It should be Your dhikr from my throat, my Lord
Let this Dhikr never leave me
And be the last thing on my tongue O Creator.
La Ilaha Illallah.
La Ilaha Illallah.




If the Seven heavens and Seven earths were put together on one side of a scale and the words "La ilaha ilalah" were placed on the other side of the scale, the later would outweigh the former.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Sahih al-Bukhari]




Among the signs of true success (tawfiq) is witnessing one's shortcomings, while having high resolve; remaining lowly and needy; being characterized by slavehood to Allah, with true following of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his actions, states, words, and character; yet not beholding any of this nor relying on it nor being tricked by it or stopping with it.
- Imam Abd Allah Ba-Sudan al-Hadrami
(in his al-Anwar al-Lami`a, a commentary on al-Risala al-Jami`a, (p. 120))




Oh writer! An Angel watches over all you write. Make your writing meaningful for it will eventually return to you and you will be questioned about what you wrote.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




There will never be enough darkness in the world to extinguish the light of Islam.




I believe if there is any place left where the humanity is still visible, it can not be anywhere else than in an Islamic society. Time would come when the world would be obliged to accept this reality.




When He opens a way for you and makes Himself known to you, then do not worry about your lack of deeds.
He only opened the way for you because He desired to make Himself known to you.
Do you not see that while He grants gnosis of Himself to you,
you have only deeds to offer Him?
What He brings you -
What you bring Him -
What a difference there is between them!
- Hikam of Ibn Ata'illa




If you remember the creation (gossip about such and such a person), then remember Allah the Most High. Remembering Him is the medicine for remembering His creation.
- Fudayl ibn 'Iyad (rahimahullah)




The heartbrokenness of the sinner is better than the forcefulness of the obedient
- Abu Madyan
[Diwan, 50]




The ambition of the spiritual traveller never wants to stop with what it has been shown save that the voices of reality call to him, "what you seek is ahead of you.
- Ibn 'Ata'illah Iskandari




The beloved of Allah are the perfume of Allah upon this world, but only the true, sincere believers have noses to smell them. They smell that beautiful perfume; they follow that smell. That perfume creates a yearning in their hearts for their Lord, and as a result the sincere believers increase their pace, efforts and devotions. - Yahya ibn Muadh al Razi (rahimullah)
[The Secrets of Secrets, p16, by Sk. Abdul Qadir Jilani]




If someone's state does not lift you up,
and his words do not lead you to Allah.
Then do not keep his company.

It may well be that you are in a bad state,
But to keep company with someone worse than you
would allow to see good in yourself.
- Ibn Ata'illah Iskandari




If someone remarks "What an excellent man you are!" and this pleases you more than his saying, "What a bad man you are!" know that you are still a bad man.
- Sufyan ath-Thawri




To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do




When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.




O my people! Prove the sincerity of your respect for the Qur'an by putting its teachings into practice, not by arguing about it.
- Mohyuddin, Abdul Qadir al Jilani
from 'The Sublime Revelation', Trans. Muhtar Holland




One who is mild rather than forceful
has greater capcity for outreach.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Tala'al badru 'alaynaa, Min thanee yatil Wadaa. Wajabash shukru 'alaynaa maa da'aa lil lahidaa. Ayyuhal mab'oothu feenaa. Ji-ta bil amril mutaa. Ji-ta shar raftal Madinah. Marhaban yaa khayra daa.

The full moon rose over us from the vally in the south. Now we owe it to show thankfulness every time we call on Allah. O you who were raised among us, coming with a word to be obeyed. You have brought to this city nobleness so welcome! best caller to Allah's way.
- Sang by the girls of Madinah when the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)entered the city on the Hijrah




Practice what you have learned, for theory without practice is like a spirit without a body. One who is content with learning alone is not learned, for the truly learned seek more than mere words. Divine guidance entails self-mortification, without which contemplation is unattainable.
- Imam Al-Hujwiri [Kashf al-Mahjub]




Life's most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?
- Martin Luther King, Jr.




If you are dependable, honest, virtuous, and content in Allah�s will, no harm shall come your way.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [as reported by Abd�Allah bin Amr]




The need to be loved is childish, immature. The need to love is mature.




Eat what you want and dress up as you desire, as long as extravagance and pride do not mislead you.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [as reported by Abd�Allah ibn Abbas]




A garden in al-Andalus has
unveiled beauty and a lush scent.

The morning glistens from its teeth
and the night is overshadowed by its scarlet lips.

When the wind blows from the East
I cry: O how I long for al-Andalus!
- Abu Ishaq ibn Khafaja (d. 1139), excerpt from a poem 'The literature of al-Andalus'




He who clings to my Sunnah when my Ummah is corrupt, will receive the Reward of a hundred martyrs.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




And those who believe are overflowing in their love of God - Qur'an, 2: 165 Have you fully Realized what Islam is? It is indeed a religion founded on truth. It is such a fountain-head of learning that several streams of wisdom and knowledge flow from it.It is such a lamp that several lamps will be lighted from it. It is a lofty beacon of light illumining the path of Allah. It is such a set of principles and beliefs that it will fully satisfy every seeker of truth and reality.

Know you that Allah has made Islam the most sublime path for attainment of His supreme pleasure and the highest standards of his worship and obedience. He has favoured it with noble precepts, exalted principles, undoubtable arguments, unchallengeable supremacy and undeniable wisdom. It is up to you to maintain the eminence and dignity granted to it by the Lord, to follow it sincerly, to do justice to its articles of faith and belief, to obey implicity its tenets and orders and to give it the proper place in your lives.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Knowledge no longer exists
if one has ignored the attributes
of the Almighty Great Creator.
- Ibn Hazm




If you have knowledge or something, let others light their candles with it.




Many things in life will catch your eye but few will catch your heart. Pursue those.




Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.




Both a swimmer and a drowned man are in the water; the latter is borne by the water and controlled by it, while the swimmer is borne along by his own power and of his own volition. Every movement made by the drowned man -- indeed, every act and word that issue from him -- comes from the water, not from him... The saints are like this. They have died before death. - Jalaluddin al-Rumi [from 'Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi']




The glance is a poisoned arrow of shaytan. Whoever lowers his gaze for Allah, He will bestow upon him a refreshing sweetness which he will find in his heart on the day that he meets Him.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




The heart, in its journey to Allah, Majestic is He, is like that of a bird;Love is its head, and fear and hope are its two wings. When the head and two wings are sound, the bird flies gracefully; if the head is severed, the bird dies; if the bird loses one of its wings, it then becomes a target for every hunter or predator.
- Ibn al Qayyim




I was once like you, enlightened and "rational",
I too scoffed at lovers,
Now I am drunk, crazed, thin with misery.
No one is safe! Watch out.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




I love God: I have no time left In which to hate the devil.
- Rabia al Basri
[From: Doorkeeper of the heart: versions of Rabia / [translated by] Charles Upton. Putney, Vt.: Threshold Books, c1988]




Truly in the heart there is a void that can not be removed except with the company of Allah. And in it there is a sadness that can not be removed except with the happiness of knowing Allah and being true to Him. And in it thereis an emptiness that can not be filled except with love for Him and by turning to Him and always remembering Him And if a person were given all of the world and what is in it, it would not fill this emptiness.




Those that follow a religion that cannot create a civilisation, will create a civilisation that cannot follow a religion.




Iman is not something that I just "perform" in a place of worship.
Iman is life.
Iman is how I interact with Allah during all the breaths that I take.
- Shaykh Habib 'Ali al Jifri




Someone told Imam Abu Hanifah, "In the mosque there is a circle (Halaqah) in which the people are looking at fiqh." He asked, "Do they have a head (i.e. a teacher)?" The man replied, "No." The Imam said, "These will never gain knowledge of fiqh."
[Reported by al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi, through his isnad, in 'al-Faqeeh wal-Mutafaqqih']




Imam Malik was asked, "Can knowledge be taken from a man who has not ([to his credit any) seeking (of knowledge) nor sitting (with scholars)?" He said, "No."
[Reported by as-Suyuti in 'Is'af al-Mubatta']




Imam al-Shafi' said, "Whoever takes knowledge from books loses the regulations." (man akhadha al-'ilma min al-kutubi Dayya'a al-aHkaama).
[Reported by al-Nawawi in the introduction to 'al-Majmu']




'Abdullah, the son of Imam Ahmad, said, "My father said : 'Knowledge is only that in which one says : So-and-so told us . . . . And, al-Mansur asked my father to discuss [something] with Ibn Abi Du'ad, but he turned his face away, saying, 'How can I discuss with someone whom I have not seen at the door of a single scholar?!'"
[Reported by Qadi 'Iyad in 'al-Ilma']




Were you to put your complete trust in Allah, He would provide for you as He provides for the birds. They issue forth hungry in the morning and return filled in the evening.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Reported by Umar in at-Tirmidhi]




Behold and see as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so you must be
Perpare for death and follow me.
- A tombstone inscription from a cemetery in New-York




Narrated Abdullah bin Amr (radiAllahu anhu), a man asked the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
'Whose Islam is good or what sort of deeds of Islam are good.'
The Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) replied,
'To feed others and to greet those whom you know and those whom you do not know.'




Everyone who is taken by death asks for more time, while everyone who still has time makes excuses for procrastination.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllah anhu)




Greed takes a person to the watering place but gets him back without letting him drink. It undertakes resposibility but does not fulfill it. Often the drinker gets choked before quenching his thirst. The greater the worth of a thing yearned for, the greater is the grief for its loss. Desires blind the eyes of understanding. The destined share would reach him who does not approach it.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




There is no joy for someone who has no sorrow.
There is no pleasure for the one who has no patience
No bliss for someone with no misery
and no rest for the one with no fatigue.
When someone is a little tired,
he has long rest.
When he endures the difficulty of steadfastness for a time,
that leads him to eternal life.
All that the people of eternal bliss
are in is steadfastness for a time.
- Ibn al-Qayyim




I am amazed at the people who take care of themselves by eating food out of fear of dying, yet do not protect themselves from sins out of fear of the Fire.
- Ibn Shubrumah [Siyar A'lam an-Nubala. - Vol 6, Page 348]




The heart, in its journey to Allah, Majestic is He, is like that of a bird; Love is its head, and fear and hope are its two wings. When the head and two wings are sound, the bird flies gracefully; if the head is severed, the bird dies; if the bird loses one of its wings, it then becomes a target for every hunter or predator.
- Ibn al-Qayyim




Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King




A'isha (radiAllahu anha) narrated two verses (couplets)
'if the friends of Zulaikha could see the blessed face of Rasulullah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam),
they would have cut their hearts instead of their hands'
[Sham'il at-Tirmidhi] Habeebah al-'Adawiyyah prayed Isha then she would stand on the roof of her house and would say,
"O my Lord,
the stars have come out,
people have gone to sleep,
and kings have closed their doors,
but Your door is open.
Every lover is alone with his lover,
but here I am standing before You."

Then she would start to pray and talk to her Lord until the time of suhoor. When the time of suhoor would come she would say,
"O Allah, this night is ending,
the day is coming,
and I wish I knew
whether You have accepted
the night of worship from me,
so that I could congratulate myself,
or if it has been rejected,
so that I might console myself."




Your Remedy is within you, but you do not sense it.
Your Sickness is from you, but you do not percieve it.
You Presume you are a small entity,
But within you is enfolded the entire universe.
You are indeed the evident book,
By whose alphabet the hidden becomes the manifest.
Therefore, you have no need to look beyond yourself,
What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.
- Ali ibn abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




The world is held up by Four pillars:
The Wisdom of the Learned;
the Justice of the Great;
the Prayers of The Righteous;
and the Valour of the Brave.
- Inscription at entrance of University of Granada in Muslim Spain.




There is nothing in our book, the Koran, 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 puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That�s a good religion.
- Malcolm X
[from 'Message to the Grass Roots', speech, Nov. 1963, Detroit (published in Malcolm X Speaks, ch. 1, 1965)].




There are many challenges, and every challenge is an opportunity, not a shackle!
- Professor Khurshid Ahmed




Indeed this discipline of ours is from cradle to grave. Whoever intends to leave this knowledge of ours for one moment, let him leave it now!
- Muhammad Ibn al-Hassan ash-Shaybani




"When you come upon the meadows of the Garden, graze in them." He was asked, "What are the meadows of the Garden?" "Circles of dhikr," he replied.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[reported by Anas - at-Tirmidhi]




Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) said;
Leave me to my companions, for by the One in whose hands is my soul, if you were to spend in charity the like of the mount of Uhud in gold you would not match their actions. -
Ahmed and considered to be Sahih




Allah! Allah! My companions! Allah! Allah! My companions! Do not take them as targets, for whoever loves them, by my love for them I will love them and whoever hates them, I will hate them and whoever harms them has harmed me and who harms me has harmed Allah and whoever harms Allah I fear He will take him. -
Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [at-Tirmidhi]




If Allah wishes for good for a man of my nation he throws love of my companions into his heart. - Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [al-Daylami]




My companions are like stars, you will be guided by whichever one you follow.-
Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Musnad of Imam Abu Hanifa, al-Baihaqi and al-Daylami]




I am amazed concerning the Hellfire - how does the one who could flee from it sleep? And I am amazed concerning the Jannah - how does the one who desires it sleep? For by Allah! If you neither desire Paradise, nor fear the Hellfire, then you are destroyed and grievous will be your sorrow, interminable your sadness and without limit your tears; you will be amongst the wretched, the punished ones. So if you claim that you are amongst those who seek refuge from the Fire and desire Paradise, then strive for that which you seek and do not be misled by your worldly desires.
- a pious slave




Fight your tongue.
The tongue is quick to kill a man.
The tongue is the posting of the heart.
It shows man his intellect.
- Imam Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak
[from Tartib al-Madarik by Qadi 'Iyad al-Yahsubi, trans. 'A'isha Bewley]




Upon your life! On the day that I carried the standard
So that the calvary of al-Lat could overcome the calvary of Muhammad
Like an uncertain person who sets out at night,
This was the time that I was offered guidance and was guided.
I was guided by someone other than myself;
I was guided to Allah by the very one I had striven so hard to drive away.
No camel has there been who ever bore upon its back
Anyone more righteous or more faithful in his pledge than Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
- Sufyan ibn al-Harith (radiAllahu anhu)




We used to say that those amongst us with the most sins are those who spend their time talking about the sins of others.
- Muhammad ibn Sireen




We have come to free the slaves of Allah from the slavery of the creation.




Purifying the heart, is equally if not more important then external ritualistic worship. It is something that we should not neglect.




Abu Bakr al-Katani said:
A discussion about mahabbah took place in Makkah, during pilgrimage season. The Shaykhs who were present spoke about this topic, and al-Junayd being the youngest of them. They said to him: What do you say, O Iraqi? So al-Junayd lowered his head and tears were gushing from his eyes, then he said:

"A servant should overcome his soul,
And be continuous in the remembrance of his Lord,
Establishing the rights of his Lord,
Focusing upon Him with his heart,
The light of fear setting ablaze his heart,
Whilst drinking from the vessel of pure love,
And certain hidden realities being unveiled for him.
So when he talks, it is due to Allah,
When he speaks, it is from Allah,
When he moves, it is by the Command of Allah,
And when he is serene, then it is from Allah,
He belongs to Allah, is for Allaah and is with Allah."

Upon hearing, the Shaykhs all started weeping, and they said:
There is nothing left to add to that, may Allah reward you O Crown of the Knowledgeable Ones.




Say Bismillah, In the name of God, as the shaykh does with a knife when he offers an animal. Bismillah your old self to find your real name. - Jalaluddin al-Rumi [from 'The Essential Rumi']




Expressing spiritual faith in physical practice is the key to life.




We did not acquire this level of tasawwuf just by talking about it; but rather, we acquired it through spending the nights awake in prayer, experiencing hunger from fasting the days, and going against our worldly desires.
- Imam Al Junayd




There are five signs of righteousness: a gentle disposition and a soft heart, shedding tears of regret, ascetism and not caring about the world, being unambitious, and having a conscience.
- Shaqiq al Balkhi (rahimullah)
[The secrets of secrets, p 62 by Sh. Abdul Qadir Jilani]




Whenever Allah gives a blessing to a servant, and then takes it back from him, and the servant patiently endures his loss, then He rewards him with a blessing which is better than the one which He took back.
- Umar ibn Abdal-Aziz




While holding the door of the Ka'bah, Abu Dharr told that he had heard the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) say,
My family among you are like Noah's ark. He who sails on it will be safe, but he who holds back from it will perish.
[at-Tirmidhi Hadith #6174, Musnad Ahmad bin Hambal]




A man with wisdom as soon as adversity appears does that which a foolish man does after a month (i.e. he resorts to patience)
- a wise man




The eye of contentment is blind to every blemish,
But the eye of rancor ferrets out mistakes.
- Abdullah ibn Mu�awiya ibn Abdullah ibn Ja�far ibn Abi Talib




It was not Muslims that had made Islam great; it was Islam that had made the Muslims great.
- Muhammad Asad




We came to liberate you from the submission and worship of people to the worship of the Lord of all people, and from the injustice of other deens to the justice of Islam, and from the anguish of this life to the bliss of this life and the hereafter.
- Ribay ibn Amir addressing the Persian Emperor




If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




I saw myself in a wide green garden, more beautiful than I could begin to understand. In this garden was a young girl. I said to her, "How wonderful this place is!"
"Would you like to see a place even more wonderful than this?" she asked.
"Oh yes," I answered. Then taking me by the hand, she led me on until we came to a magnificent palace, like nothing that was ever seen by human eyes. The young girl knocked on the door, and someone opened it. Immediately both of us were flooded with light.

Only Allah knows the inner meaning of the maidens we saw living there. Each one carried in her hand a serving-tray filled with light. The young girl asked the maidens where they were going, and they answered her, "We are looking for someone who was drowned in the sea, and so became a martyr. She never slept at night, not one wink! We are going to rub funeral spices on her body."
"Then rub some on my friend here," the young girl said.
"Once upon a time," said the maidens, "part of this spice and the fragrance of it clung to her body -- but then she shied away."
Quickly the young girl let go of my hand, turned, and said to me:

"Your prayers are your light;
Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.
Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,
You will only turn to dust." Then the young girl disappeared
-Rabia al-Basri




Be with Allah,
You will find Allah with you.
- Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi




Learn silence as you have learned speech.
Speech will guide you, and silence will protect you.
- One of the scholars of Ihsan




If I had known of any science greater than tasawwuf I would have gone to it, even on my hands and knees.
- Imam Junayd




Uthman (radiAllahu anhu), during the time of his Khilafah, came to visit Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (radiAllahu anhu) on his deathbed. He asked, "What is your ailment?"
"My sins", Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (ra) replied.
"And what do you desire?", Uthman asked.
"The mercy of my Lord"




For no single thing exists that does not have its source with Us; and naught do We bestow from on high unless it be in accordance with a measure well-defined
- Qur'an, Surah al-Hijr, 21




Beware of luxury, for the slaves of Allah are not luxurious.
- Ibn Masu'd




Neglect not your time, nor use it haphazardly; on the contrary you should bring yourself to account. Structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night. This is how to bring about the spiritual blessing (baraka) in each period. If each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, Be not like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life grows ever shorter.
- abu Hamid al-Ghazali [in 'Bidayat ul-Hidaya']




You have not abandoned ignorance at all if you want something to take place in any moment other than what Allah has manifested it in.
- Shaykh Ibn Ata'illah




Whoever desires Paradise, proceeds towards goodness; whoever fears Hell, refrains from the impulses of passions; whoever believes firmly in death, detests wordly life; and whoever recognises the worldly life, the trials and tribulations (of life) become slight for him.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




Do not despair when in spite of intense supplication,
there is a delay in receiving the expected gift.
He has guaranteed that he will respond
in what He chooses for you,
and not what you choose for yourself,
and at the time He chooses
� not the time you desire.
- Ibn Ata'illah




You have not abandoned ignorance at all if you want something to take place in any moment other than what Allah has manifested in it.
- Ibn Ata'illah
[Hikam of Ibn Ata'illah, Trans. by A'isha Bewley]




Better to look at the defects hidden within you
than to look for the unseen worlds that are veiled from you.
- Shaykh Ibn Ata'illah




Whoever builds his faith exclusively on demonstrative proofs and deductive arguments, builds a faith on which it is impossible to rely. For he is affected by the negativities of constant objections. Certainty (al-yaqin) does not derive from the evidences of the mind but pours out from the depths of the heart.
- Ibn Arabi




Hope and fear are like the two wings of a bird, when its flying straight to its destination: if one wings fails, and if both fail, it dies.
Ab'ul Qasim Al Quraiyshi




Knowledge for us means knowledge of the allowance/dispensation (rukhsa).
As for strictness, anyone can show strictness.
- Sufyan ath-Thawri




Allah guards the justice loving government, even if it is the government of non-Muslims, and destroys the tyrant government, even if it is the government of Muslims.
- Ibn Taymeeyah




If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.




To my view, the women in an Islamic society is just like a well-protected flower which is safe from the stray penetrating looks of the viewers. Whereas western society is devoid of the vision to appreciate this wisdom and philosophy.
- Jermaine Jackson I look everywhere for your love -
Then suddenly I am filled with it.
O Captain of my Heart,
Radiant Eye of Yearning in my breast...
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




Oh Beloved, take me. Liberate my soul. Fill me with your love and release me from the two worlds. If I set my heart on anything but you let fire burn me from inside. Oh Beloved, take away what I want. Take away what I do. Take away what I need. Take away everything that takes me from you.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Think a bit on the following incident before we claim to be Ulema.
Once Hasan Basri Rahmatullahi alai (a tabiee), one of the greatest Aalims Islam has ever produced, was walking and a person called him thus, �Ya Faqeeh!� (O jurist!) Hasan Basri turned back and said, �A wa hal ra�ayta faqeehan qattu.� (Have you ever seen a jurist that you are calling me a jurist?)




The face of the one who sincerely loves Allah glows with spiritual radiance of Love. When some of the rulers from the Successors (Tabi'in) sent a delegation to collect the jizya (tax) from the disbelievers, the latter refused to pay. The officials asked, "Why do you refuse to pay us when you used to pay our forefather?" the disbelievers replied,
"When your forefathers used to come, their clothes were old and torn, their hair was disheveld, and their eyes were streaked with red due to worshipping throughout the night. Yet their faces were so awe-inspiring that we were able to raise our eyes toward them. Your characteristics are not like theirs, nor will be as just. Be Gone, we will not give you anything."
- Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad




Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Learn silence as you have learned speech.
Speech will guide you and silence will protect you.
- A scholar of Islam




Toward the latter days of indiscriminate violence, be like the first and better of the two sons of Adam who said, �If you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you; surely I fear God, the Lord of the worlds"
- From a sound tradition of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam narrated by Imam Tirmidhi 'The roots of blameworthy behaviour are three,
1. To be pleased with the Self.
2. To fear creation.
3. To be concerned about provision.

From the first comes desire, forgetfulness and disobedience. From the second come anger, rancor and jealousy. From the third comes greed and expectation and avarice.
To hold onto one thing will eliminate all of these and that is not to be pleased with the self in any state, and to beware of it at all times.
- Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq




Gratitude to God should be as regular as our heartbeat.




The sincere person is the one who hides his good deeds just like he hides his evil deeds.
- Ya'qub al-Makfoof




We've got spirals of advice,
thousands seas of wise words
but every human being,
every soul,
follows their own route,
their own destiny with a different velocity.




There are two kinds of Riya - Showing off-Ostentation ie pure ostentation and adulterated ostention. In pure ostentation "Riya" a man does a good deed only for worldly benefit. In Adulterated ostentation, a man does a good deed with the intention of reaping the benefits of the world as well as of the Hereafter.
- Abu Hamid Al Ghazali




Someone who seeks to travel the path of Allah should begin with a sound repentance from all his sins.
- Abdullah ibn Alawi Al Haddad




By Allah, whenever I endure any adversity I gain four blessings of Allah in exchange. The first of them is, when the adversity is not caused by my sin (virtue is earned). The second, when the adversity is not greater than my sin (virtue is earned). The third, when I am not deprived of contentment (virtue is earned). And the fourth, I hope for virtues thereby.
- Umar ibn Al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu)




The wise man knows the only fitting price for his soul is a place in Paradise.
- Ibn Hazm




The mere physical man is like the ant crawling
on the paper, who observes black lettering and
attributes its production to the pen and nothing more.

- abu Hamid al Ghazali [Alchemy of Happiness]




You must be the change, you want to see in the world.
- Mahatma Ghandi




Believers see their sins as if they were sitting at the foot of a mountain and feared that it may fall on them, while the corrupt see their sins as if they were a mere fly that flew by their nose.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) [reported in Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim]




To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.




Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe




Abu Dharr once described the people of the world, says, "They breed what will they ultimately bury, they build what will eventually be destroy, they hold firm to what is emphemeral, and they forsake what is everlasting. Hence, blessed are the two cries people abominate most: Death and poverty.
- Abu Dharr
[narrated by Abu Muhammad Bin Hayyan]




Your heart mirrors not His love,
Rusty with your sins it is,
Remove this rust and you shall
Perceive how Glorious He is.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Only someone who is sincere recognizes what showing off is.
- Imam Shafi' (rahimullah)




"if a rock falls on another rock on the other side of the moon, how does Islam explain it?"
"Who Cares?"
- Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller




The beginning of knowledge is the intention, then listening, then understanding, then action, then preservation, and then spreading it.
- Ibn al-Mubarak




Had there not been five bad qualities, all the people would have been righteous. Contentment with ignorance; love for worldly life; miserliness inspite of much wealth; ostentation in (good) deeds; and pride in their own intelligence.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




If someone desires to make a display, he is the slave of display, and if someone desires concealment, he is the slave of concealment. The slave of Allah is the same whether he is public or concealed.
- Abu'l-'Abbas al-Mursi




Doubt is a precipice on the way to God. Blessed is he who is freed from its bonds. He who fares without any doubt, adhere to his footprints if you do not know the way. Cleave to the footprints of the deer and advance with care that you may reach the musk-gland. By means of such trekking, even if you walk on fire, you will reach the luminous peak.
- Jalaluddin Rumi




I studied adab for thirty years and I studied knowledge for twenty years.
- Ibn al-Mubarak




The wound caused by fire heals in its time;
the burn inflicted by an inflamed tongue never heals.




Umar ibn al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu) was on his way to take possession of the conquered city of Jerusa�lem. Along the journey he stopped at a place called Jaabiyah where he addressed the Mus�lims:

O People! Reform your innerselves (souls), then your outer-selves (worldly af�fairs) will be rectified (automatically). Prac�tise (righteousness) for your Aakhirah, then your worldly affairs will be seen to ....... Whoever intends to take the direction of the Path of Jannat should hold on to the Jama'ah (i.e. Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah). Verily shaitaan is with the lone person. He remains far from two persons. Never any of you be alone with a woman, for verily, the third one present is shaitaan. He who derives happiness from his virtuous deeds and is grieved by his evil deeds, verily, he is a Mu 'min.




Learn silence as you have learned speech.
Speech will guide you, and silence will protect you
- One of the scholars of Ihsan




Be a good man to Allah and a bad man to yourself (desires); and be one of the commoners among the people
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




A servant should overcome his soul,
And be continuous in the remembrance of his Lord,
Establishing the rights of his Lord,
Focusing upon Him with his heart,
The light of fear setting ablaze his heart,
Whilst drinking from the vessel of pure love,
And certain hidden realities being unveiled for him.
So when he talks, it is due to Allah,
When he speaks, it is from Allah,
When he moves, it is by the Command of Allah,
And when he is serene, then it is from Allah,
He belongs to Allah, is for Allah and is with Allah
- al-Junayd




My friend, seize the chance to live, How many a corpse that came to them was revived; Never shall anyone be disappointed, never, Who comes with a true intention. Clear your heart for the theophany, Open your eye for true joy; Other than the Divine, my friend, abandon, And be annihilated in the exalted entity
- Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri (rahimahullah)




Dhikr is the reason for the life of the heart and leaving it is the reason for its death.
- Ibn Ajiba




What can my enemies do to me?
I have in my breast both my Heaven and my Garden.
If I travel they are with me, and they never leave me.
Imprisonment for me is a religious retreat [khalwa].
To be slain for me is martyrdom [shahada]
And to be exiled from my land is a spiritual journey [siyaha].
- Ibn Taymiyyah




Bishr al-Hafi, a pious bachelor and teacher of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (rahimahullah), appeared to someone in a dream, and was asked, “How has God treated you?” He responded, “I have been given a high rank in the Gardens of Paradise. And I was allowed to look upon the stations of the prophets (alayhum salam); yet I never attained to the ranks of the married.” When asked what had become of Abu Nasr al-Tammar, he replied, “He has been raised seventy degrees above me.” People were surprised, and asked how this could be, and he answered, “He earned that by his patience with his little daughters and his family burdens.”




A bachelor once asked Imam al-Ghazali: `Which should I choose: marriage, or total devotion to God? ‘Both’, he replied.




Seek knowledge. Seeking it purely for Allah�s sake is fearing Him; Pursuing it is worshipping Him; discussing it is remembering Him; searching for it is Jihad ; imparting it to others is charity and spending it for the benefit of the family is affinity. All this is because knowledge is the borderline between the lawful and the unlawful; the light to the inroads to heaven; the friend in isolation; the companion in travel, the person to discuss with in solitude, the guide in happiness and sorrow; bringer of peace to the enemy, and an ornament to the intimate friend. With the power of knowledge Allah raises a people and makes them leaders of virtues. Their footsteps and deeds are imitated and people conclude with their opinions. The angels show anxiousness in their friendship and spread their wings for them. Every animate and inanimate prays for their salvation; the fish and creatures in the sea, the animals and beasts on the land, all ask for repentance for the learned. This is so because knowledge is equivalent to praying through the night. Knowledge brings one closer to his relative and verses him with the facts of the lawful and the unlawful. Knowledge remains the leader while actions remain the followers. It inspires the fortunate and deprives the wicked.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[reported by Mu�adh Ibn Jabal
from Ihya ulumud-Deen - Abu Hamid al-Ghazali]




"Say: Allah is my all. In Him do (all) the trusting put their trust."
- Qur'an, 39:38




The scholars of our time have been content with speech and with no practice! The Salaf use to practice but not speak. After them the people practiced and spoke being followed by a people who spoke but did not practice. There will come a time when people will not speak nor practice.
- Abu Hazim




Abu Darda (radhiAllahu anhu) reports that Rasulullah said:
Allah says: I am Allah besides whom there is no deity. I am the Master of kings. The hearts of kings are in the control of My hands. Verily, when My servants obey Me, I turn the hearts of the kings (rulers) towards them so that they rule over them with compassion and mercy. When My servants disobey Me, I turn the hearts of their kings (rulers) against them. Hence, they treat them harshly with anger and vengeance (thereby they mete out torture and oppression). Hence, do not occupy yourselves with praying for curses upon the kings. Instead turn to Me in remembrance and with humility. I will then protect you from the tyranny of the kings.
- reported in Mishkat




If you are good, be better.




Since you are not a prophet, follow the way taught by prophets.
Since you are not a king, be a loyal subject to The King.
Since you are not a captain, do not take the helm of the ship.
Since you do not possess every skill, have partners in your business.
Be as pliant as dough in the hands of others, that you may rise well.
- Jalaluddin Rumi [from Masnavi]




There are three indications of real generosity:
To remain steadfast without resisting,
to praise without the emotion of generosity,
and to give before being asked.
- Maruf Al Karkhi Abu Mahfuz Bin Firuz




The main focus of Muslim activists in the field of Da'wa should be on making people aware of the importance of learning the Deen, studying the Shari'ah, and diving into the depths of the Sacred Knowledge in order to ultimately live upon it. The key to the success and triumph of the Muslim Umma unequivocally lies in Sacred Knowledge. Only through studying the Sacred Knowledge may we increase the fear of Allah in our hearts and precisely emulate the exemplar of the Prophet salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam and follow the steps of the 'Ulama. In order for the Umma to regain its intellectual consciousness and reinstate its sense of civilization, we need, beside following the Qur'an and the Sunna, to adhere to the way of the 'Ulama that spans over fourteen centuries, a way that, in reflecting the Qur'an and the Sunna, articulated the corpus of fiqh and the exegeses of the Qur'an and Sunna, thus introducing the way to the following generations. Recognizing this legacy and digging out its treasures is vital to the recovery of the Umma. This can only be done through reviving the tradition of learning and teaching in Islam, where a teacher represents the spring of knowledge and the exemplar of righteousness, the continuation of the glorious past and the embodiment of the blessing and light of an unbroken chain of transmission. People should know that unlike political movements and sectarian groups, we do not call to our own way, nor do we have our own new agenda. The Deen is our agenda, and the way of the 'Ulama is our way.
- Shaykh Muhammmad al Yaqoubi sums up his way in these words.




This world is full of remedies. But you have no remedy until God opens a window for you. You may not be aware of that remedy just now. In the hour of need it will be made clear to you. The Prophet said God made a remedy for every pain.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




When light engages the heart, it causes an illumation of the path,a purification of the consciousness, an enlightenment of the intellect and an establishment of the foundations of dhikr and shukr and of beautiful worship.
- Habib Umar Bin Hafiz




Do not try to run away from trials and tribulations, but endure them with patience. They cannot be avioded, and there is nothing for it but to endure them with patience, How can you expect the whole of this world, and all that has been created therein, to undergo change and transformation just to suit your convenience? The Prophets are the best of all creatures, yet they have always had to suffer afflication and so it is for their followers, those who tread in their footsteps as they walk along their highway, emulating their example.
- Abdul Qadir Jilani




True knowledge is not measured in relationship tohow much you memorize and then narrate, but rather, true knowledge is an expression of piety
- Ibn Mas'ud




What hurts the soul? To live without tasting the water of its own essence.
- Jalaluddin al-Rumi




Truth is Timeless, and returning to Truth is better than continuing in Falsehood.
- Umar ibn al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu)




Anyone who refuses to marry is shrinking his farmwork, wasting the seed, and leaving idle the appropiate tools created by God; he sins against the purpose of creation and wisdom visible in the evidence of natural structure. The man who refuses to marry has severed a chain of being, a previously unbroken chain linking his own existence to that of Adam (alayhis salam).
- Imam abu Hamid al-Ghazali




When you're feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated...
"Know that Allah Most High is there. Know that He The All Seeing is watching. Know that He Most Wise is testing you. Know that He Most Kind and Merciful is waiting for you to call to Him. Know that He Most Powerful is Able to do All things. Whether it is from His Immense Love or His Wrath that you are feeling such anxiety, Know that His Mercy outsrips His Wrath. Know that when you call out to Him in desperation Your Beloved answers in ways you may not know. Oh faqir, call out to Your Lord Most High, oh faqir walk towards Your Beloved, Your Beloved will take strides towards you. Oh faqir, open your heart to Your Beloved, and your Beloved will open His Treasures to you.




Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.




"Humankind, an admonition has been sent from your Lord. It is a balm for all that ails the heart, a source of guidance to grace the true believers. So let them rejoice in the bounty of Allah. It transcends what they hoard."
- Qur'an, Surah Yunus, 10:57-58




It was narrated that Anas (radiAllahu anhu) said:
On the Day of Uhud, some of the people fled and left the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam), but Abu Talhah stood before him covering him with a shield. Abu Talhah was a powerful archer who broke two or three bows that day. When a man passed by carrying a quiver containing arrows, he would say, 'Give them to Abu Talhah'. Whenever the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) raised his head to look at the people, Abu Talhah would say, "O Prophet of Allah, may my father and my mother be sacrificed for you, do not raise your head lest you be struck by an arrow shot by the enemy. My neck is before your neck."
[Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim]




Who has never killed an hour? not causally or without thought, but carefully: a predmeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you killed the hour. you do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.




No one attains the reality of renunciation (Zuhd) until there are three characteristics in him: work without attachment, speech without personal motives, and honor without seeking position.
- Yahya bin Muadh




Its about You, Your Lord and the Grave � nothing else matters.
- Shaykh Nuh Keller




Guard your tongue from praise as you have guarded it from blame.
- Maruf al-Karkhi




Worry about Allah and what He wants you to do and He will take care of your worries.
- Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller




Absorption in worldly affairs breeds darkness in the heart, and absorption in the affairs of the next world enkindles light in the heart
- Uthman ibn Affan (radiAllahu anhu)




When Umar bin Al-Khattab (radiAllahu anhu) despatched the army of Sa'ad bin Abi Waqqas (radiAllahu anhu) to the Battle of Al-Qadisiyyah, he advised him:
"Fear your sins more than you fear the enemy as your sins are more dangerous to you than your enemy. We Muslims are only victorious over our enemy because their sins outnumber ours, not for any other reason. If our sins were equal to those of our enemy, then they would defeat us due to their superior numbers and resources."




You should not neglect your time or use it haphazardly; on the contrary you should bring yourself to account, structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night, and assign to each period a fixed and specific function. This is how to bring out the spiritual blessing (barakah) in each period. But if you leave yourself adrift, aimlessly wandering as cattle do, not knowing how to occupy yourself at every moment, your time will be lost. It is nothing other than your life, and your life is the capital that you make use of to reach perpetual felicity in the proximity of God the Exalted.
Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved.
Do not be like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens. What good is an increase in wealth when life grows ever shorter? Therefore be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children and friends stay behind.
- Imam al-Ghazali
[from The Beginning of Guidance, p23]




To maintain nice relation with the people is half of intelligence, nice questioning is half of knowledge, and nice domestic arrangements is half of the management of livelihood.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




None in this age will amass wealth except those having five traits ofcharacter. High hopes; abnormal greediness; excessive miserliness, lack of fearing Allaah; and forgetfulness of the coming world.
- Sufyan ath-Thawri




Whoever seeks the protection of God, give him protection. Whoever asks in the name of God,grant him refuge. Whoever does a good deed to you, reward him. And if you do not have anything (to give in reward), invoke God's blessings on his behalf until you know that he has been rewarded.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Vol 3, #104B]




Cheer people up, do not put them off.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)




Most people don't pray until they're in trouble.
When people need help they pray a lot.
But after they get what they want, they slow down.
If a man takes five showers a day, his body will be clean.
Praying five times a day helps me clean my mind.
- Muhammad Ali (renowned World Boxing Champion)
[from 'Muhammad Ali, His life and times' by Thoman Hauser p.463




The finest of the believers conduct themselves with honorable bearing.
And the finest of the finest are those who treat their mates with affection.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[as reported by Abu Hurairah]




I have learnt silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange,
I am ungrateful to these teachers.
- Kahlil Gibran




Five are the marks of Allah-fearing people. They do not associate with people other than those with whom they can maintain terms on a religious basis; they restrain their private parts and their tongues; when they make any large temporal gain, they take it as a curse, and when they gain even a little piety, they consider it precious; they do not eat to their full even of what is permitted for fear that anything forbidden might be mixed with it, they consider all people pious and pardoned, but consider themselves as sinners.
- Uthman ibn Affan (radiAllahu anhu)




I know none who has heard of Paradise and Hell, then spends an hour of his life without praying, remembering Allah or doing a good deed
- An ascetic




As for the people of Tasawwuf, they affirm the love of Allah, and this is more evident among them than all other issues....the affirmation of the love of Allah is well-known in the speech of their [old] and recent masters, just as it is affirmed in the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah and in agreement of the ways of the early generation (Salaf)
- Ibn Taymiyyah




If He opens a door for you, thereby making Himself known,
pay no heed if your do not measure up to this.
For, in truth, He has not opened if for you
but out of a desire to make Himself known to you.
Do you not know that He is the one
who presented the knowledge of Himself to you,
whereas you are the one
who presented Him with deeds?
What a difference between
what He brings to you and what you present to Him!
- Ibn Ata'illah




Be content with what you have
Be satisfied with your dwelling place
to accommodate your enterprise,
Restrain your tongue,
And shed tears of regret
regarding past sins you committed knowingly,
and those you do not recognize.
- Abdullah bin Mas'ud




You rave about the Holy Place (Masjid al-Haram)
and say you've visited God's garden
but where is your bunch of flowers?
There is some merit
in the suffering you have endured
but what a pity you have not discovered
the Makkah thats inside
- Jalaluddin Rumi




I am astonished about those people who are ordered to prepare their provisions, then the start of the journey is announced, however they remain unmindful in their vain discussions and fruitless deeds.
- Al Hasan al-Basri




Work for the sake of this life within the extent of your stay in it, and for the Hereafter within the extent of your stay therein
- Sufyan ath-Thawri, when asked by a man seeking his advice




Don't seek anything other than contentment, because therein is the bliss and the comfort of your body. Then consider the case of a person who possesses the whole world, can he take with him in the grave more than cotton and a shroud?
- A poet




What you love to have with you in the Hereafter you should advance today, and what you hate to have with you, you should abandon today
- Salman ibn Dinar




Allah the Exalted loves him who forgoes worldly life, the Angels love him who rejects the vices, and the Muslims love him who gives up greediness in respect of the Muslims.
- Uthman ibn Affan (radiAllahu anhu)




Be a good man to Allah and a bad man to yourself (desires); and be one of the commoners among the people
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




How often it is that a small action becomes great by its intention. And how often it is that a great action becomes small by its intention.
- Abd Allah ibn Mubarak
[Dhahabi, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala', 8: 400]




A great many people proceed towards evils on account of receipt of blessings, many people are ruined by praise, and many a man is deceived by Allah's protection (in concealing vices).
- Ibn Mas'ud




Whoever desires Paradise, proceeds towards goodness; whoever fears Hell, refrains from the impulses of passions; whoever believes firmly in death, detests wordly life; and whoever recognises the worldly life, the trials and tribulations (of life) become slight for him.
- Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)




My father died, and for an entire year I did not ask Allah for anything except that He forgive my Father
- Amir ibn Abd Allah ibn Az-Zubayr (radiAllahu anhu)




During the funeral of his mother, Al-Harith Al-Akli (radiAllahu anhu) weeped. When asked for the reason of his tears he said, "Why should I not cry when one of my doors to Paradise has now closed?"




Your prayers are your light;
Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.
Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,
You will only turn to dust.
- Rabia al-Adawiyyah




And when Imam al-Shafi' (Rahimullah) reached forty [years of age] he began to walk with a staff, and when questioned about it used to say: "To remind myself that I am a traveller"




The purpose of our creation is obvious:
to reach our utmost goals of
belief,
knowledge,
and spirituality;
to reflect on the universe,
humanity,
and God,
and thus prove our
value as human beings.
- M. Fethullah Gulen




Your pleas shall be answered, but wait patiently for the Lord to respond. Do not lose hope and begin to complain, "I beseeched the Lord, but He never responded." - Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
reported in Sahih al-Bukhari




Iyyadh bin Ghanam narrated that Allah's messenger (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) said:
" I was informed by the heavenly hosts of angels that the most dignified among my followers are people who rejoice in public when they ponder the vastness of Allah's all-encompassing mercy and compassion, and they weep privately when they contemplate rigorous punishment He reserved for the sinners and the deniers of the truth. They sit in His blessed mosques morning and evening worshipping Him and celebrating His praises inwardly, and they implore Him with their tongues outwardly with reverence and awe. They pray to Him with their hands raised as well as lowered, and they yearn for Him unceasingly. They take little from people, and yet, it bears heavily on their hearts. They walk barefooted, humble, unpretentious, and unnoticed, just like ants, without finery; and they are free of self-adulation. They walk with dignity and serenity, and they rise to the nearness of their Lord through their link to His messenger (salAllahu alayhi wasalam).
They wear the garment of good conduct and follow the clear proof. They read the Qur'an regularly, take their daily guidance from it, and they happily make the necessary personal sacrifices to meet its requirements. Almighty Allah has surrounded them with distinguished witnessing angels, and faithful guardians, and He has illumined their faces with effulgence as a sign of His blessings upon them and as a demostration of His satisfaction with them. When they look at His servants, they anticipate promising signs. They often contemplate the vastness of Allah's creation. Their bodies dwell on earth, and their eyes are anchored upon the heavens. Their feet stand on earth, and their hearts dwell in the heavens. They breath on earth, and yet, their spirits are connected to the divine Throne. Their souls live in this world, and their thoughts are focused on the hereafter. They only worry about what may come. Their graves are in this world, and their ranks are exalted in Allah's sight."
- Imam Abu Na'eem al-Asfahanee
[from The Beauty of the Righteous and the Ranks of the Elite]




The heart becomes sick, as the body becomes sick,
and its remedy is al-Tawbah (repentance)
and protection [from transgression].
It becomes rusty
as a mirror becomes rusty,
and its clarity is obtained by remembrance.
It becomes naked
as the body becomes naked,
and its beautification is al-Taqwa.
It becomes hungry and thirsty
as the body becomes hungry,
and its food and drink are knowledge,
love,
dependence,
repentance
and servitude.
- Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah




I complained to Waki' about the weakness of my memorisation,
So he instructed me to abandon disobedience;
He informed me that knowledge is a light,
And the light of Allah is not given to a sinner.
- Imam Ash-Shafi' (Rahimullah)




Indeed Allah is gentle
and loves gentleness,
and gives due to gentleness
that which He does not give due to harshness
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[ibn Majah, ibn Hibban - Hasan]




Work for your dunya in accordance with the length of your stay therein.
Work for your akhira in accordance with the length of your stay therein.
Work for the Fire in accordance with your ability to endure it.
And work for God in accordance with your need for Him.
- Hatim al-Asamm




Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You -

O God, I can't live in this world
Without remembering You
- Rabia al-Adawiyyah




Innumerable changes of moods are yours,
and they are uncontrolled by you.
If you knew their origin,
you would be able to dominate them.
If you cannot localize your own changes,
how can you localize that which formed you?
Jalaluddin al-Rumi [Fihi Ma Fihi]




Dear Ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring anesthetic relief
to their sad
days
- Hafiz




The strangest question I have ever been asked is: why are you Muslim? I find that question strange because I have never thought of a reason. My 'Muslimness' comes naturally to me; no other alternative has ever crossed my mind. I am Muslim because the only logical explanation of all the wonder in the universe and in ourselves is that a Creator exists. Every breath I take is a mercy from that Creator. To deny God, I would be denying myself and my life. Indeed, I see God's miracles everywhere, I cannot but love, worship and obey Him.
Through God's commands, revealed in the Qur'an and the examples of the Prophet Muhammad, I know exactly how to live my life. I am free to choose between peace and happiness by becoming a part of God's greater design, and the nightmare of rejecting my Creator's guidance. I am Muslim because I choose to be logical and far-sighted. I see the ligic of Islam and am far-sighted enough to plan for the eternity that God has offered.
- Marwa El-Naggar, An Egyptian Woman in her 20s.
From 'The no-nonsense guide to Islam'




True devotion is for itself:
not to desire heaven
nor to fear hell.
- Rabia al-Adawiyya




The supplication is the weapon of the believer,
a pillar of the Religion
and the light of the heavens and the earth
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[al-Hakim - Sahih, narrated Ali]




If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, God will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their great pleasure with one who seeks knowledge. The inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth and (even) the fish in the deep waters will ask forgiveness for the learned man. The superiority of the learned over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night when it is full, over the rest of the stars. The learned are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave (no monetary inheritance), they leave only knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant portion.
- Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
[Sunan Abu-Dawud, Hadith 1631]




O ye people I counsel you to read the Qur'an.
Try to understand it and ponder over it.
Imbibe the teachings of the Qur'an.
Then practise what the Qur'an teaches.
- Umar ibn Al-Khattab (in his address after gaining Jerusalem)




My health is in the hands of Allah,
who has ways of testing us.
Whatever happens, happens.
I a'int the greatest - it's Allah.
I gave myself a job. I work for God.
- Muhammad Ali (renowned World Boxing Champion)
from 'View from the Corner' Time Magazine




Forgive him who wrongs you;
join him who cuts you off;
do good to him who does evil to you;
and speak the truth even if it be against yourself.
- Inscribed on the prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)'s sword




Light Shining Forth
'When I saw his light shining forth,
In fear I covered my eyes with my palms,
Afraid for my sight because of the beauty of his form.
So I was scarcely able to look at him at all.
The lights from his light are drowned in his light
and his face shines out
like the sun and moon in one.
A spirit of light lodged in a body like the moon,
a mantle made up of brilliant shining stars.
I bore it until I could bear it no longer.
I found the taste of patience to be like bitter aloes.
I could find no remedy to bring me relief other than delighting in the sight of the one I love.
Even if he had not brought any clear signs with him, the sight of him would dispense with the need for them.....'
- Hassan bin Thabit
[written over 1400 years ago]




Yearning for Allah and His meeting is like the gentle breeze blowing upon the heart, extinguishing the blaze of the Dunya. Whosoever caused his heart to settle with his Lord shall be in a state, calm and tranquility, and whosoever sent it amongst the people shall be disturbed and excessively perturbed.
- Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah




If asked whether you love God, say nothing. This is because if you say, 'I do not love God,'you are an unbeliever. If, on the other hand, you say, 'I do love God,' your actions contradict you.
- Fudayl




Meditation in God is my capital.
Reason and sound logic are the root of my existence.
Love is the foundation of my existence.
Enthusiasm is the vehicle of my life.
Contemplation of Allah is my companion.
Faith is the source of my power.
Sorrow is my friend.
Knowledge is my weapon.
Patience is my clothing and virtue.
Submission to the Divine Will is my pride.
Truth is my salvation.
Worship is my habit.
And in prayer lies the coolness of my eye and my peace of mind.
- ascribed to Ali (radiAllahu anhu)