Tilawah or recitation is an act in which your whole person, soul, heart, mind, tongue and body participates. In short your whole existence becomes involved. In reading the Qur'an, mind and body, reason and feeling lose their distinction; they become fused. As the tongue recites and words flow from the lips, the mind ponders, the heart reflects, the soul absorbs, tears well up in the eyes, the heart quakes and trembles, the skin shivers and softens just as the heart does, there no longer remains any duality between the two, even your hair may stand on end. And 'so he walks in a light from his Lord .. [khurram Murad : Way To The Quran]
Sulayman bin Dawud: "Verily, the one who conquers his desire is stronger than the one who takes over a city alone." (Hilyah al-Awliya’ 6/1707)
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen: "If he (the man) wants to live a happy life, he has to come home with an open chest and treat his children and his wife in the best possible way." (Fatâwâ ´Ulamâ’ al-Balad al-Harâm, p. 656)
Imam Sufyaan wrote in a letter: "Improve your secret and private life, and Allah will improve your public and social life. Make matters well between you and Allah, and Allah will make matters well between you and people. Work for the Hereafter, and Allah will be enough for you in your worldly concerns." (Biography of Imam Sufyaan ath-Thawri by Salaahud-Deen ibn Ali ibn Abdul-Maujood)
Tawḥīd is that all invocation, all cries, all appeals for aid, all hope and all summons for good and the warding off of evil have to be directed to God and no one else. —Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Shawkānī [d. 1250/1834], al-Durr al-Naḍīd
"I used to think that the Muslim world had a spiritual problem. The crisis of the Muslim world is a crisis of knowledge, a crisis of the intellect." -- Hamza Yusuf [RIS knowledge retreat 2013]
Imam Sufyan al-Thawri was asked about the saying of Allah, "And man was created weak." What is meant by weak? He replied: "A women passes by a man, and the man can not prevent himself from looking at her, and he attains no benefit (by looking at her), is there anything weaker than this?" (Hilyatul Awliya 7/68)
Abu Hazim: "Beware of being found where Allah prohibited you & being absent from where Allah commanded you to be." (al-Hilyah v. 3 p. 234)
"Obstacles strengthen your faith and help you to obtain wisdom and skills." Professor Tariq Ramadan at #RIS2013 Convention
Kahmas b. al-Hasan said to me: ”I committed a sin for which I have been crying in regret for forty years.” I asked: ‘What was it?’ He said: ‘A friend of mine visited me once so I bought for him a fish (to serve it to him). After he ate I stood up and took a piece of mud from the wall of my neighbor so he could use to wash his hand. This sin [taking the piece of mud without asking the permission of my neighbor] is what I have been crying about for forty years.” Related by ‘Amaarah b. Zhaadhaan Hilyah al-Awliya’ (6/211)
al-Haarith ibn Qays: "If you want to do something good, then do not put it off until tomorrow; if you are doing something pertaining to the Hereafter, then continue as long as you can; if you are praying and the Shaytaan tells you that you are showing off (by making it long), then make it longer." (Az-Zuhd by Ibn al-Mubaarak, p. 12)
‘Abdullaah Ibn Mas’ood (radiyAllahu'anhu):“Indeed, I hate to see a man totally free, not doing anything from the work of the life of this world nor the Hereafter.” (Al-Hilyah 1/130)
Umar Ibn Al-Khattab:"Fear Allah, for whoever fears Him will never feel lonely." (Taqwa: The Provision of Believers, pg. 14)
Ibn al-Mubarak: "Nothing is better than seeking knowledge for Allah’s sake. And Allah hates nothing such as seeking knowledge for someone else's sake." (Adab Shar’iyyah 2/127)
Abdullah ibn Mubarak: “Whenever a man would see something from his brother that he dislikes, he would give him orders in private and forbid him in private. Conversely, he would be rewarded for him screening his brother and also rewarded for forbidding evil. As for today, whenever a man sees what he dislikes he angers his brother and unveils his screen.” (Raudatul ‘Uqaalaa, p. 197)
I have never struggled to rectify something that is more difficult to overcome than my soul; sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose. —Sufyān al-Thawrī [d. 161H/778CE] (Read on pg 86, Salaahud-Deen ibn ‘Alee ibn ‘Abdul-Maujood, The Biography of Sufyaan Ath-Thauree. Darussalam Publishers. Riyadh:2005.)
Giving up positions of leadership is more difficult than giving up the world (and its pleasures). —Sufyān al-Thawrī [d. 161H/778CE] (Read on pg 92, Salaahud-Deen ibn ‘Alee ibn ‘Abdul-Maujood, The Biography of Sufyaan Ath-Thauree. Darussalam Publishers. Riyadh:2005.)
Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen: “It is fitting that a person always asks Allaah to purify his heart. He should devote his attention to the actions of the heart. The care a person gives to the actions of the heart must be more than the care he gives to the actions of the body–because everyone performs bodily actions, the believer and the hypocrite.” (Tafseer Surah al-Maa’idah, vol. 1, p. 410.)
A man said to al-Hasan al-Basri, “O Abu Sa’eed, I am complaining to you of the hardness of my heart.” He said, “Soften it with dhikr. The more forgetful the heart is, the harder it becomes, but if a person remembers Allaah, that hardness softens as copper melts in the fire. Nothing can soften the hardness of the heart like the remembrance of Allaah, may He be glorified and exalted. Dhikr is healing and medicine for the heart. Forgetfulness is a disease, the cure for which is remembrance of Allaah.” (Al-Waabil al-Sayib wa Raafi al-Kalim al-Tayyib, 142)
Imam Sufyan ibn ‘Uyaynah: “Honoring the prayer includes coming before the Iqamah is recited.” (Sifat as Safwah 2/235)
Abu Al-Ashhab said: ” ‘Umar passed by a garbage dump and stopped there, and it was as if his companions were bothered by it (the smell). He said, ‘This is the world of yours which you are so eager for and you weep over.’ ” ('Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab, His Life And Times, By 'Ali Muhammad As-Sallaabi, Vol. I, p. 288)
Muhammad bin Abdil-Baqi al-Hanbali: "The teacher is not allowed to be violent and the student is not allowed to be arrogant." (adab shar'iyyah 1/297)
"Force yourself to be humble until it becomes your second nature. Then it will be an unconscious activity" -- Hamza Yusuf [07/01/14]
"Only the sincere survive." - Omer Suleiman
“To love him (i.e. the Prophet ṣallallāhu `alayhi wa-sallam) is to follow him.”– Sufyān al-Thawrī
"Everything you desire exists with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, So if you have Allah, you have everything you desire. If you don't have Allah then nothing you desire will make you happy." -- Hamza Yusuf [14/01/14]
Imam Maalik ibn Anas: “Knowledge is not relaying an abundance of narrations, but rather it is light that Allah places in the heart.” [Al-Jaami' Li Akhlaaq Ar-Raawee Wa Aadaab As-Saami', 2/174]
Abu Muslim Al-Khawlaani: "The example of the scholars on earth is that of the stars in the sky: when they appear, the people are guided (they navigate using the stars), but when they disappear, the people get confused and lost." [Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Madkhal ila Al-Sunan Al-Kubra #287]
Abdullah ibn Masud (radiyAllahu'anhu): “It is more beloved to me to bite onto a red coal until it cools, than for me to say about something that Allaah has preordained, ‘Only if it didn’t happen.‘ “ [Az-Zuhd, of Abu Daawood, p. 136]
Imam Sufyaan Ath-Thawree: “Three qualities are from patience: not speaking about your misfortune, (not speaking about) your pain, and not praising yourself.” (Al-Hilyah, 6/389)
Ibn al-Jawzee: “Once I learned the virtue of marriage and having children, I read the whole Qur’aan and then asked Allaah, the Most High, to give me ten children. He answered my request and gave me five boys and five girls.”[Siyar al-A’laam an-Nubulaa, 21/375]
The evidence of a true journey towards God is that you go beyond your fears. This is the ultimate liberation. -- Tariq Ramadan [official FB page, 23 jan 14]
Allah does not need your good deeds, you need your good deeds. -- Tariq Ramadan [21 jan, 2014]
Imaam al-Bukhari was asked: “What is it that strengthens one’s memory?“ He replied: “Constantly looking through books.“ [Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa Fadlih]
Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with him, said, In every tribulation there are three blessings:
1. It could be worse than what it is.
2. The tribulation is in your worldly matters and not in your religion.
3. The tribulation is in this world, and not in the hereafter.
[17 benefits of tribulations by Hamza Yusuf]
