{"quotes":[{"text":"We were the most humiliated people on earth and God gave us honour through Islam. If we ever seek honour through anything else, God will humiliate us again.","author":"Umar ibn Al-Khattab","tags":["allah","god","honour","humiliation","islam"],"id":399,"author_id":"Umar+ibn+Al-Khattab"},{"text":"The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism. To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points.If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere.","author":"Frithjof Schuon","tags":["art","islam","perennial-philosophy","religions","sufism"],"id":946,"author_id":"Frithjof+Schuon"},{"text":"Saying of the ProphetObjectsIt is your attachment to objects which make you blind and deaf.","author":"Idries Shah","tags":["hadith","islam","muhammad","religion","sufis","sufism"],"id":1064,"author_id":"Idries+Shah"},{"text":"The essence of all human rights is the equality of the entire human race, which the Qur’ān assumed, affirmed, and confirmed. It obliterated all distinctions among men except goodness and virtue (taqwā).","author":"Fazlur Rahman","tags":["islam"],"id":1265,"author_id":"Fazlur+Rahman"},{"text":"God stipulates in the Bible that Jesus Followers are to love and serve everyone regardless of their faith or lack of it. But, this does not require us to honour and respect their Biblically-heinous cultural practises like multiculturalism does!","author":"Gary Patton","tags":["apostacy-laws","buddhism","hate","hinduism","homophobia","hounour-killing","islam","jesus","jesus-following","jihad","misogyny"],"id":1723,"author_id":"Gary+Patton"},{"text":"Submission, when it is submission to the truth — and when the truth is known to be both beautiful and merciful — has nothing in common with fatalism or stoicism as these terms are understood in the Western tradition, because its motivation is different. According to Fakhr ad-Din ar-RazT, one of the great commentators upon the Quran: The worship of the eyes isweeping, the worship of the ears is listening, the worship of the tongue is praise, the worship of the hands is giving, the worship of the body is effort, the worship of the heart is fear and hope, and the worship of the spirit is surrender and satisfaction in Allah.","author":"Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi","tags":["allah","fatalism","islam","quran","stoicism","worship"],"id":3048,"author_id":"Fakhr+Al-Din+Al-Razi"},{"text":"The question, therefore, is not whether one should teach philosophy to Muslim students, but rather what kind or kinds of philosophy should be taught and how the subject should be approached.","author":"Seyyed Hossein Nasr","tags":["islam","philosophy"],"id":3267,"author_id":"Seyyed+Hossein+Nasr"},{"text":"Wars have been waged over millions of square miles, significantly larger than the British Empire at its peak. Historically, Islamic conquests stretched from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and from central Asia to New Guinea. The Muslim goal was to have a central government, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad, later at Cairo, Istanbul, and other imperial centres. The local governors, judges, and other rulers were appointed by the central imperial authorities for far off colonies. Islamic law was introduced as the senior law, whether or not wanted by the local people. Arabic was introduced as the rulers’ language, while the local languages frequently disappeared. Then, two classes of residents were established. The native residents paid a tax that their rulers did not have to pay. In each case, these laws allowed the local conquered people less freedom than was given to Muslims.","author":"Anita B. Sulser PhD","tags":["arabic","austria","bhagdad","british-empire","egypt","imperial-conquest","islam","istanbul","language","nigeria","ruling-class","tax"],"id":3350,"author_id":"Anita+B.+Sulser+PhD"},{"text":"Islamophobia defines whether a person is really a thinking and sentient sapiens or an ignorant caveman.","author":"Abhijit Naskar","tags":["consciousness","fear","fundamentalism","human-behavior","human-mind","human-nature","inspirational","inspiring","islam","islamophobia","jihad","motivational","muslims","philosophy","phobia","primitive-human-behavior","quran","religious-terrorism","terrorism","truth"],"id":3452,"author_id":"Abhijit+Naskar"},{"text":"The tree (of Islam) is of artificial planting. Instead of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to the various requirements of time and clime and circumstance, expanding with the genial sunshine and rain from heaven, it remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted some twelve centuries ago.","author":"William Muir","tags":["islam"],"id":3782,"author_id":"William+Muir"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":798,"pages":80,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}