The Internet Islamic Art Database | Library of Islamic Art and Quotes | Page 87

“Contemporary scientific discoveries (the neurosciences and neurobiology) confirm that there are biological differences between [men and women], and that it would be insane to deny their existence. Scientists do not deny that our relationship with the social and cultural environment has a determining influence (epi-genesis), but they have found some basic differences: the left hemisphere of the brain is more highly developed in women, who are actually less emotional than men but tend to be better at expressing their emotions because of their greater need to verbalize and communicate. Women have a more highly developed sense of hearing and touch, whereas men’s sight is more highly developed and means that they have a different relationship with visual spatial abilities. An analysis of hormonal functions shows that men and women relate differently to the environment and have different needs in terms of safety, no matter what culture they live in: women have a greater need for protection, and men a greater need for adventure. We are free to reject these scientific discoveries, or to regard them as irrelevant, but we have to admit that we must not confuse ‘equality’ with ‘identity’ in the sense of similarity.

“There is no love based on Piety that does not arouse the jealousy of those who do not understand it.

“What can bring you closer to God can also make you go astray.

“You are humble when you always question your humility.

“When I pretend to be strong, no one sees my hidden tears except Allah. When I’m sad and need a shoulder to cry on, no one supports me but Allah. Pleasing a human is very difficult, pleasing Allah is the easiest. People sometimes punish me for mistakes I have not done, Allah ignores and excuses the ones that I did. This is Allah, The Greatest, The Most Almighty, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful, and all praise belongs to Him.

“The sign of the One’s Presence at the time of a person’s death lies not in the occurrence of any miracle but rather in the permanence of the natural order, in the eternity of His creation, crossed here and there by the passage of created beings, who come and depart.

“Because Muhammad’s life expressed the manifested and experienced essence of Islam’s message, getting to know the Prophet is a privileged means of acceding to the spiritual universe of Islam. From his birth to his death, the Messenger’s experience—devoid of any human tragic dimension—allies the call of faith, trial among people, humility and the quest for peace with the One.

“Islam is a message of justice that entails resisting oppression and protecting the dignity of the oppressed and the poor, and Muslims must recognize the moral value of a law or contract stipulating this requirement, whoever its authors and whatever the society, Muslim or not.

“From the very start, the Prophet did not conceive the content of his message as the expression of pure otherness versus what the Arabs or the other societies of his time were producing. Islam does not establish a closed universe of reference but rather relies on a set of universal principles that can coincide with the fundamentals and values of other beliefs and religious traditions (even those produced by a polytheistic society such as that of Mecca at the time).

“Pride is to affirm outward independence by maintaining the illusion of liberty at the heart of one's being. Humility is to rediscover the breath of the primordial need of Him at the heart of our being, in order to live in total outward independence.

“Before your eyes is a child...life, dependence, fragility, and innocence. To be with God is to know how to keep this state: a humble acceptance of your fragility, a comprehension of your dependence—going back to the beginning.

“To call on God is not to console oneself—it is to rediscover the condition God originally wanted for us—the spark of humility, the awareness of fragility.

“With لا إله إلا الله comes liberation…liberation from arrogance.

“On the surface, on the surface only...suffering and the unknown seem to press the mind to look for a refuge, a consolation. This is the logic our reason proposes when it looks on the human being on the outside of its nature. The Islamic tradition says exactly the opposite: the ordeals of life, sadness, encountering the death of those we love, for example, take the human being back to its most natural state, to its most essential longing. Consciousness of limitation brings it back to the need for the Transcendent, to the need for meaning.

“We want to tell people how great Islam is yet we are not great Muslims.

“I have this memory of my father when I asked him to give me a certain sum of money. It was ten Swiss francs. And I asked him that, and he looked me in the eyes and I was not sure why. He did not ask me, “where are you going, what is it for, when are you coming back” like many parents would do. He said something very important. He gave me the money and he said, “Here, take it. But do not do something that displeases God.” What did he say? He told me all I had to know. He told me, I trust you and if I am not here, God accompanies you, and this is between you and God. This is Trust. But it is only when someone tells you that, that you know that he loves you and understands you.

“Stop being the object of the perception of the other. Be the subject of your history.

“The most difficult jihād is the jihād of love. The one we feel, the one we learn, the one we shape.

“You have to put your trust in this community because even though there are divisions, even though you sometimes have the feeling that you are doing exactly the opposite of what we have to do, there is a secret: this community will never come to an agreement on something which is wrong. And you can feel it, you can feel it everywhere you go.

“We are not distinguishing between Muslims and non-Muslims when the people are victims. We are on the side of the poor, the oppressed, because this is the way that the Prophet ﷺ was.

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