[Musashi]

Asallamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuh

Jazaki Allahu khair.

This is a wonderful thread.

[MoonStar]

I really recommend buying/borrowing this book, I'm only posting tidbits, and different passages appeal to different people. My brother read the same copy I did and highlighted different lines that I wouldn't have, which made me look at them again. It's sold on amazon and half.com and various online islamic bookstores.

"He told his companions: 'When Allah completed the creation He wrote the following, which is with Him above His Throne: "My mercy takes precedence over My wrath,"' and this hadith is decisive for the Muslims; it states categorically that all the 'names' and attributes by which the Quran indicates various aspects of the divine nature as they relate to humanity are subordinate to this supreme and essential attribute."

- ch 3

[aFallenAngel]

amazing stuff. Mashallah

[MoonStar]

"Each of us in his little corner is a participant in a drama- both cosmic and metacosmic- beside which the greatest earthly convulsions of storm and hurricane, of earthquake and volcanic eruption, are little more than the shifting of theatre scenery. But the dominant theme which runs through the Quran from beginning to end is the mercy of God, in whose hands even such a drama as this is but a small thing, and we are assured that those who have grasped the 'firm handhold' offered to them have nothing to fear.

At journey's end is the greeting: 'O thou soul at peace- Return unto thy Lord, content in His contentment' (Q.89.27-28): 'As for such, He has inscribed faith upon their hearts and strengthened them with a Spirit from Himself, and He will bring them into Gardens beneath which flow rivers, therein to abide. Allah is content with them, and they are content with Him' (Q.58.22).

- ch 4

[MoonStar]

"Whether we can read these signs or not, their presence all around us is something concrete, like writing on a page. Another way of putting this would be to say, for Islam, there is nothing that does not have a meaning, and these meanings are not isolated words on the page; they are coherent and interconnected, and it may be mentioned in passing that the ancient science of astrology is founded, not on the improbable notion that the stars and the planets 'influence' human lives, but upon the belief that we and they are part of a single pattern, and that a relationship necessarily exists between the different elements which make up the pattern."

- ch 4

[MoonStar]

"It is almost impossible to grasp the extent of the Prophet's activity in this period. During the ten years in Medina he organized seventy four campaigns, leading twenty four of them in person, campaigns which finally placed the whole of Arabia in his hands. Yet this was only one aspect of his life- a minor aspect, one might think, when reading the hadith literature. Far more important was his function as a teacher, and while counselling all who came to him and acting as judge in every dispute- constantly interrupted by the overwhelming experience of repeated revelations- he still found time for his family and his friends."

- ch 6

[MoonStar]

"Be as that may, a turning-point had come for Muhammad, for the Muslims and for the world. It was Muhammad's destiny- and as aspect of his prophetic function- that he should demonstrate the alternatives open to the persecuted and oppressed; on the one hand, forbearance and the 'turning of the other cheek'; on the other, what is called by Christians the 'just war', but for which- in the words of a later Quranic revelation- 'corruption would surely overwhelm the earth' (Q.2.251). For almost thirteen years he and his people had suffered persecution, threats and insults without raising a hand in self-defence. They had proved that this was humanly possible. Circumstances were now changing and called for a very different response if the religion of Islam was to survive in the world. Peace has its seasons, but so has war, and the Muslim never forgets that every man born is born to war in one form or another, at one level or another; if not physical, then spiritual. Those who try to ignore this face are, sooner or later, enslaved."

- Ch 6

[MoonStar]

"He taught his people that the ideal at which they must aim was to perpetuate their consciousness of spiritual realities in the midst of their daily lives and ordinary business. 'By Him in whose hand is my soul,' he said 'if you were to remain perpetually as you are in my presence or in your times of remembrance (dhikr) of Allah, then would the angels come to take you by the hand as you lie in your beds or as you go on your ways...'

- Ch 6, The City of the Prophet

[Bluestar]

"Amir Abd ul Qadir of Algeria said: "our God and the God of all communities opposed to ours are in truth one God...despite the variety of his manifestations...He has manifested Himself to Muhammed's people beyond every form whilst manifesting Himself IN every form...To Christians He has manifested Himself in the form of Christ...and to the worshippers of whatever form it may be...for no worshipper of a finite object worships it for it's own sake. What he worships is the epiphany in this form of the attributes of the true God. Yet that which all the worshippers worship is one and the same. Their error consists only in the act of determining it in a limitative manner."

I'm sorry, i don't have the page number or chapter.

Don't you think he wrote a lot like Martin Lings? That, perhaps shows how close they might have been

[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by Pardees

Conversion: Islam, the growing religion

Dudes, what happened to Pardees? He was a good 'un.

[MoonStar]

"In this, as in the fall of the Barmecides, the Muslim discovers many lessons regarding the nature of the world and much to remind him of human mortality: 'The world's soft to the touch; so is the adder, sudden in venom.' A man said: 'I had business one day at the Treasury Office, and my eye ran over one of the ledgers that lay open. I noticed the entry: One Dress of Honour and Governor's Insignia (Ja'far ibn Yahya): dinars 400,000. It did not seem so very long after that I was in the Office again and saw this item entered on the current page: Naptha and wood-shavings for burning body (Ja'far ibn Yahya): kirats 10.' A few pennies sufficed Ja'far at the end."

- Ch 8- The Way of the World