Islam Quotations

Islam

From Wikiquote Be steadfast in prayer and regular in charity: And whatever good ye send forth for your souls before you, ye shall find it with Allah: for Allah sees Well all that ye do.

Islam is a monotheistic religion originating with prophet Muhammad, a 7th century Arab, and centered on the religious text known as the Qur'an. It is the second-largest religion in the world today, with an estimated 1.84 billion adherents, spread across the globe, known as Muslims. Linguistically, Islam means submission, referring to the total surrender of one's self to God (Arabic: الله, Allāh), and a Muslim is "one who submits to God".

Contents 1 Quotes 1.1 Qur'an 2 See also 3 External links

Quotes

Every soul will taste of death. And ye will be paid on the Day of Resurrection only that which ye have fairly earned.

Alphabetized by author or source

• Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.
  • Omar M. Ahmad, Chairman of the Board, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), at the Islamic Conference in Freemont, California, (July 1998), as quoted in "American Muslim leader urges faithful to spread Islam's message: by Lisa Gardliner, in The San Ramon Valley Herald (4 July 1998). "Should Muslim Quran be USA's top authority?" by Art Moore in WorldNetDaily (1 May 2003)

• The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, And those with religion, but no brains.
  • Abu'l-`Ala' al-Ma`arri (Arabic: أبو العلا المعري), poet of Ma`arra (Syria), 973–1057, quoted in Maalouf, Amin (1989). Crusades Through Arab Eyes.

• Atatürk has stated, "He (Prophet Muhammed (s.a.w) is Allah's first and greatest human-being. Today, in his footsteps, millions are walking. Your and my name would get erased someday but he, eternally, is immortal
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as stated in, Atatürk'ün Fikir ve Düşünceleri (Atatürk ve Din Eğitimi, A. Gürtaş, s. 26)

• Our life here is truly hellish. Fortunately, my soldiers are very brave and tougher than the enemy. What is more, their private beliefs make it easier to carry out orders which send them to their death. They see only two supernatural outcomes: victory for the faith or martyrdom. Do you know what the second means? It is to go straight to heaven. There, the houris, God's most beautiful women, will meet them and will satisfy their desires for all eternity. What great happiness!
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, letter to Corinne Lütfü, from the Gallipoli peninsula (20 July 1917) as translated in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango. ISBN 158567334X

• When the Imam said that "the relations with the America are like the relations between a wolf and a sheep," he meant that the tension in these relations would continue until America renounces its imperialist essence — and it is not about to do so for the time being. The Imam was talking about the struggle between Islam and America, not about compromising with America. He said: "We will not allow you to have interests in the world of Islam."
  • Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi, in an televised address Iranian leader: "We Are Stronger Than America and the West (June 2006)

• There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. … A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude if lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets.
  • G.K. Chesterton, in Lord Kitchener (1917), p. 8

• How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
  • Winston Churchill, The River War (1899), first edition, Vol. II, p. 248

• But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that of Jerusalem, which soon became the theatre of nations. In their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the assurance of their religion and property; … and the sepulchre of Christ, with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by the conquest of the Arabs; … The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the worship of so many nations in the common temple of their religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was imbittered by hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah, who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and persecute their spiritual brethren.
  • Edward Gibbon (1788), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5, Chap. 57, on Jerusalem under the Muslims and the motivation of the Crusades

• About four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mahometan yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the adventurers had agreed to respect the exclusive property of the first occupant; and the spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps and massy vases of gold and silver, rewarded the diligence, and displayed the generosity, of Tancred. A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians: resistance might provoke but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre; and the infection of the dead bodies produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives, whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. … Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the Savior of the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption. … nor shall I believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre.
  • Edward Gibbon (1788), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5, Chap. 58, on the Christian conquest of Jerusalem from the Muslims

• In Mohammedanism the limited principle of the Jews is expanded into universality and thereby overcome. Here, God is no longer, as with the Asiatics, contemplated as existent in immediately sensuous mode but is apprehended as the one infinite sublime Power beyond all the multiplicity of the world. Mohammedanism is, therefore, in the strictest sense of the world, the religion of sublimity.
  • Hegel, Philosophy of Mind (quoted by Slavoj Žižek in A Glance into the Archives of Islam, Lacan dot com, 1997)

• If the Qur'an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.
  • Christopher Hitchens, Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 21, Number 4

• Islam in its origins is just as shady and approximate as those from which it took its borrowings. It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or "surrender" as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.
  • Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great (2007). See also a video of his reading and an excerpt.

• The prophet died in the year 632 of our own approximate calendar. The first account of his life was set down a full hundred and twenty years later by Ibn Ishaq, whose original was lost and can only be consulted through its reworked form, authored by Ibn Hisham, who died in 834. Adding to this hearsay and obscurity, there is no agreed-upon account of how the Prophet's followers assembled the Koran, or of how his various sayings (some of them written down by secretaries) became codified. … It is said by some Muslim authorities that during the first caliphate of Abu Bakr, immediately after Muhammad's death, concern arose that his orally transmitted words might be forgotten. So many Muslim soldiers had been killed in battle that the number who had the Koran safely lodged in their memories had become alarmingly small. It was therefore decided to assemble every living witness, together with "pieces of paper, stones, palm leaves, shoulder-blades, ribs and bits of leather" on which sayings had been scribbled, and give them to Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet's former secretaries, for an authoritative collation. Once this had been done, the believers had something like an authorized version. If true, this would date the Koran to a time fairly close to Muhammad's own life. But we swiftly discover that there is no certainty or agreement about the truth of the story. Some say that it was Ali—the fourth and not the first caliph, and the founder of Shiism—who had the idea. Many others—the Sunni majority—assert that it was Caliph Uthman, who reigned from 644 to 656, who made the finalized decision. Told by one of his generals that soldiers from different provinces were fighting over discrepant accounts of the Koran, Uthman ordered Zaid ibn Thabit to bring together the various texts, unify them, and have them transcribed into one. When this task was complete, Uthman ordered standard copies to be sent to Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and elsewhere, with a master copy retained in Medina. Uthman thus played the canonical role that had been taken, in the standardization and purging and censorship of the Christian Bible, by Irenaeus and by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. The roll was called, and some texts were declared sacred and inerrant while others became "apocryphal." Outdoing Athanasius, Uthman ordered that all earlier and rival editions be destroyed. Even supposing this version of events to be correct, which would mean that no chance existed for scholars ever to determine or even dispute what really happened in Muhammad's time, Uthman's attempt to abolish disagreement was a vain one. The written Arabic language has two features that make it difficult for an outsider to learn: it uses dots to distinguish consonants like "b" and "t," and in its original form it had no sign or symbol for short vowels, which could be rendered by various dashes or comma-type marks. Vastly different readings even of Uthman's version were enabled by these variations. … To take one instance that can hardly be called negligible, the Arabic words written on the outside of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are different from any version that appears in the Koran.
  • Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great (2007). See also a video of his reading and an excerpt.

• The situation is even more shaky and deplorable when we come to the hadith, or that vast orally generated secondary literature which supposedly conveys the sayings and actions of Muhammad … As one might expect, the six authorized collections of hadith … were put together centuries after the events they purport to describe. One of the most famous of the six compilers, Bukhari, died 238 years after the death of Muhammad. Bukhari is deemed unusually reliable and honest by Muslims, and seems to have deserved his reputation in that, of the three hundred thousand attestations he accumulated in a lifetime devoted to the project, he ruled that two hundred thousand of them were entirely valueless and unsupported. Further exclusion of dubious traditions and questionable isnads reduced his grand total to ten thousand hadith. You are free to believe, if you so choose, that out of this formless mass of illiterate and half-remembered witnessing the pious Bukhari, more than two centuries later, managed to select only the pure and undefiled ones that would bear examination.
  • Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great (2007). See also a video of his reading and an excerpt.

• You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
  • Adolf Hitler, as quoted Inside the Third Reich : Memoirs by Albert Speer, p. 115

• The canon of the [sharia] and the Church, closely linked with the laws of the bourgeosie, treated women as a commodity, a thing to be bought and sold by the male... Just as the bourgeosie had made the worker into its proletarian, so had the savage ancient canons of the [shariah], the Church, feudalism and the bourgeosie, reduced woman to the proletariat of the man.
  • Enver Hoxha (1986) The Artful Albanian, (Chatto & Windus, London) ISBN 0701129700

• Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell; If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;  What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find? Shall God His secret to a maggot tell? … The Koran! well, come put me to the test— Lovely old book in hideous error drest—  Believe me, I can quote the Koran too, The unbeliever knows his Koran best. And do you think that unto such as you, A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,  God gave the secret, and denied it me?— Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
  • Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat (1048–1123), translation by Richard Le Gallienne

• Jews and Saracens [Muslims] of both sexes in every Christian province must be distinguished from the Christian by a difference of dress. On Passion Sunday and the last three days of Holy Week they may not appear in public.
  • The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Canon 68; see Judenhut, yellow badge. This is partly so that Christians will not unknowingly have sexual relations with Jews or Muslims.

• Many Westerners forget that when the Prophet spoke of four wives as the maximum allowable number, he had in mind a reduction to four as compared to the number then often prevailing; moreover, Mohammed specified that a man should acquire more than one wife only if he could treat them all with equal justice — obviously a difficult feat for even the most diligent man to achieve. In effect, then, the Prophet curtailed the number of wives.
  • Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza (1961) Mission for my Country, London, p. 233

• All churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.
  • Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794)

• Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
  • Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794)

• Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was — and it remains — incapable of adapting itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards progress and checked the evolution of society.
  • Andre Servier, in L’islam et la psychologie du musulman (1923)

• As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. … The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
  • The Treaty of Tripoli (January 4, 1797). Carried unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President John Adams.

Qur'an

The translations currently used here are primarily those of Yusuf Ali and Marmaduke Pickthall

• And be steadfast in prayer and regular in charity: And whatever good ye send forth for your souls before you, ye shall find it with Allah: for Allah sees Well all that ye do.
  • Sura 2:110 (The Cow, سورة البقرة) as translated by Yusuf Ali
  • Establish worship, and pay the poor-due; and whatever of good ye send before (you) for your souls, ye will find it with Allah. Lo! Allah is Seer of what ye do.
    • as translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

• Original: الَّذِينَ يَأْكُلُونَ الرِّبَا لاَ يَقُومُونَ إِلاَّ كَمَا يَقُومُ الَّذ يَتَخَبَّطُهُ الشَّيْطَانُ مِنَ الْمَسِّ ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُواْ إِنَّمَا الْبَيْعُ مِثْلُ الرِّبَا وَأَحَلَّ اللّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَا فَمَن جَاءهُ مَوْعِظَةٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِ فَانتَهَىَ فَلَهُ مَا سَلَفَ وَأَمْرُهُ إِلَى اللّهِ وَمَنْ عَادَ يَمْحَقُ
  • Those who devour usury will not stand except as stand one whom the Evil one by his touch Hath driven to madness. That is because they say: "Trade is like usury," but Allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury. Those who after receiving direction from their Lord, desist, shall be pardoned for the past; their case is for Allah (to judge); but those who repeat (The offence) are companions of the Fire: They will abide therein (for ever).
    • Sura 2:275 (The Cow, سورة البقرة), as translated by Yusuf Ali; see also: Islamic banking
  • Those who swallow usury cannot rise up save as he ariseth whom the devil hath prostrated by (his) touch. That is because they say: Trade is just like usury; whereas Allah permitteth trading and forbiddeth usury. He unto whom an admonition from his Lord cometh, and (he) refraineth (in obedience thereto), he shall keep (the profits of) that which is past, and his affair (henceforth) is with Allah. As for him who returneth (to usury) — Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.
    • As translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

• Every soul shall have a taste of death: And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception.
  • Sura 3:185 (The House Of 'Imran, آل عمران) as translated by Yusuf Ali
  • Every soul will taste of death. And ye will be paid on the Day of Resurrection only that which ye have fairly earned. Whoso is removed from the Fire and is made to enter paradise, he indeed is triumphant. The life of this world is but comfort of illusion.
    • As translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

• 'It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.
  • Sura 21:33, as translated by Yusuf Ali

• 'Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away: (such is) the artistry of Allah, who disposes of all things in perfect order: for he is well acquainted with all that ye do.
  • Sura 27:88, as translated by Yusuf Ali

• And Allah created you from dust, then from a sperm-drop; then He made you mates. And no female conceives nor does she give birth except with His knowledge. And no aged person is granted [additional] life nor is his lifespan lessened but that it is in a register. Indeed, that for Allah is easy.
  • Sura 35:11, as translated by Sahih International

• He created the heavens and earth in truth. He wraps the night over the day and wraps the day over the night and has subjected the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term. Unquestionably, He is the Exalted in Might, the Perpetual Forgiver.
  • Sura 39:5, as translated by Yusuf Ali

• And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.
  • Sura 51:47 as translated by Sahih International

• 'We sent down Iron, in which is (material for) mighty war, as well as many benefits for mankind, that Allah may test who it is that will help, Unseen, Him and His messengers: For Allah is Full of Strength, Exalted in Might (and able to enforce His Will).
  • Sura 57:25, as translated by Yusuf Ali

• And We have sent the fertilizing winds and sent down water from the sky and given you drink from it. And you are not its retainers.
  • Sura 57:25, as translated by Sahih International

• Original: وَلَقَدْ زَيَّنَّاالسَّمَاءالدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَجَعَلْنَاهَا رُجُوماً لِّلشَّيَاطِينِ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لَهُمْ عَذَاب َالسَّعِيرِ
  • And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.
    • Sura 67:5 (The Sovereignty, Control, سورة الملك‎) as translated by Yusuf Ali
• And verily We have beautified the world's heaven with lamps, and We have made them missiles for the devils, and for them We have prepared the doom of flame.
  • • As translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

• Original: أَلَمْ تَرَوْا كَيْفَ خَلَقَ اللَّهُ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا وَجَعَلَ الْقَمَرَ فِيهِنَّ نُوراً وَجَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ سِرَاجاً
  • See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?
  • The Qur'an (القرآن),Sura 71:15-16 (Noah, سورة نوح) as translated by Yusuf Ali
  • See ye not how Allah hath created seven heavens in harmony, And hath made the moon a light therein, and made the sun a lamp?
    • As translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

• When the sun (with its spacious light) is folded up; When the stars fall, losing their lustre; When the mountains vanish (like a mirage); When the she-camels, ten months with young, are left untended; When the wild beasts are herded together (in the human habitations); When the oceans boil over with a swell; When the souls are sorted out, (being joined, like with like); When the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned — For what crime she was killed; When the scrolls are laid open; When the world on High is unveiled; When the Blazing Fire is kindled to fierce heat; And when the Garden is brought near;- (Then) shall each soul know what it has put forward. So verily I call to witness the planets — that recede, Go straight, or hide; And the Night as it dissipates; And the Dawn as it breathes away the darkness;- Verily this is the word of a most honourable Messenger, Endued with Power, with rank before the Lord of the Throne, With authority there, (and) faithful to his trust. And (O people!) your companion is not one possessed; And without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon. Neither doth he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the Unseen. Nor is it the word of an evil spirit accursed. When whither go ye? Verily this is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds: (With profit) to whoever among you wills to go straight: But ye shall not will except as Allah wills,- the Cherisher of the Worlds.
  • Sura 81:1-29 (The Overthrowing, as translated by Yusuf Ali

See also

• Qur'an

• Quran on infidels
• Quran on Christianity

External links

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Criticism

• IslamWatch
• ISLAM UNDRESSED
• Political Islam
• Prophet of Doom
• Answering Islam a Christian-Muslim dialog
• Australian Islamist Monitor, Islam Under Scrutiny

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