The Internet Islamic Art Database | Library of Islamic Art and Quotes

“You are not little in the sight of your Lord nor unimportant, for He breathed His spirit into you, made the angels bow down to you, made the elements and the cosmos subservient to you, gave you immortality, and gave you freedom. If you wish, you can be a godly person, and if you wish, you can be a servant of Satan. Where in any of this is there anything trivial or unimportant?

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“On the outside, I have a border and a ceiling that ends at my body. But on the inside, I have neither a ceiling nor a limit to my depth.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Boredom is nature's punishment for those who do not do [useful] work.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“The biggest problem any one of us could fall into is to be controlled by...anything.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“If you could enter the heart of another person, you'd feel sorry for him or her.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Everything will go away and disappear. It is we who give it value and importance, and then suffer pain and torment for the sake of its supposed importance.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Work and strive toward God by seeking knowledge, not by growing beards, shortening garments, wearing sandals and obsessing over appearances and secondary things, for the first verse that was revealed of your Book was: "Read!"

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Modern warfare is to make your enemy kills himself with his own hands instead of going to the trouble of killing him yourself.

[Explaining how Western powers sow war and destruction in the Middle East.]

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Gratitude toward a blessing means refraining from using the blessing to disobey the One that gave it to you.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“If thirst for water indicates the existence of water, in a similar way thirst for justice indicates the existence of justice, and since there is no justice in this world, this is indicates the presence of an afterlife, the home of true justice.

Wahiduddin Khan

“O Lord, I beseech you by my weakness and Your strength, and I call on You by my powerlessness and Your power, to create a way out of my darkness into my light, and out of my light into Your Light, You are infinite and pure, none is worthy of worship besides You.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Regret is the voice of the fitrah [our God-inspired inner self] in the moment of error.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“If you want to understand a human being, look at his action during a moment of free choice, and you will be surprised. You may see a saint committing adultery, a prostitute praying, a doctor drinking poison. You may see your friend stabbing you and your enemy saving you, and you may see a servant mighty in status by his actions, and a master baser than the basest servant by his works.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“It is in our nature to not believe except in what we can see and touch. But this is arrogance, for how few are the things we see, and how little are the things we perceive in this world!

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“God, the Generous, has allowed us to enter His presence at any time without appointment, and to remain in His presence for as long as we want to ask Him whatever we can ask. Simply by spreading a prayer mat and saying "God is Great", we are in His presence, able to ask whatever we like. Where is the king that allows us to enter his presence at any time, and to remain in his presence however long we like?

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Hatred costs more than love, for it is an unnatural feeling, an opposing state like the movement of objects against the earth's gravity; it requires extra force and uses up more fuel.

Dr. Mustafa Mahmud

“Therefore when they [the Muslims] showed ingratitude toward the blessings that Allah had given them, He caused them to undergo severe torment under the hands of the Mongols in Baghdad, and in the Crusades when Westerners violently took over Muslim lands. Even today, they continue to take away and divide their homelands and rain fire and brimstone on them. Meanwhile the Muslims are busy with entertainment and error. Whenever a calamity or crisis befalls them, they say it is God's decree, without acknowledging the causes and without seeing the wisdom behind it, and without actively seeking to find a cure.

Sheikh Ahmad Mustafa al-Maraghi

“In recent times, the "complete" Muslim is sometimes considered to be the one who dedicates himself solely to worship and doesn't engage in anything else, staying in his place of prayer and not leaving it, keeping to the required dhikrs and wirds (prayer words). This image is absolutely unlike the image of the life of the Prophet and his companions who followed him. While worship was a part of the book of their lives, struggle for the sake of Allah filled its pages, struggle for freeing society from false beliefs and superstitions, struggle for establishing correct beliefs, freeing it from oppressors and tyrants, protecting the weak and establishing justice among people.

Similarly, the life of a Muslim who dedicates himself solely to struggle and social activism, if it lacks worship and a deep connection to Allah, is lacking and malformed in comparison to the picture of a wholesome Islamic way of life.

Muhammad al-Mubarak (d. 1981)

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