People have been fighting and dying over religion for thousands of years. I could understand that fear. It creeps up on you a bit more when you’re alone in a foreign land. You certainly worry about it more when you walk the same streets as violent people that harbor a clear hatred of your beliefs and values. The reality is some Muslims in the world would kill me for being Christian, just as some Christians in the world would kill Maya, Gita, Farid and Ridwan for being Muslim. Nowadays news outlets and social media have reified that fear. It keeps some people focused and aware. It paralyzes others. It blinds some of us. That’s what happened to me. It’s why I felt the whole world shake. Twice.

The earth isn’t spinning because you told it to do so. Your intestines aren’t digesting by your command. You’re made up of a trillion cells who don’t ask your permission before offering their rakats. And we think submission is applying strict discipline to our worship? We think surrender is about not eating a pig? It’s just not that small to me. i can’t fit my deen into a neat little box, because to me everything comes from Allah. Birds sing Allah’s name. to say Allah is in this book and not that… do you know who you’re talking about? the Allah that made you from a clot and clothed in flesh… Allah is too big and open for my deen to be small and closed.

Isa Ibn Maryam عليه السلام (Jesus, Son von Maria) pflegte zu sagen: "Seid nicht in einer Versammlung anwesend, in der nicht der Name Allahs erwähnt wird, denn dadurch werden eure Herzen zu Stein. Ein hartes Herz ist weit entfernt von Allah, ohne es zu wissen. Schaut nicht auf die falschen Taten der Menschen, als würdet ihr Herren sein. Schaut stattdessen auf eure eigenen Fehltritte, als würdet ihr Skalven sein. Manch einer wird von den falschen Taten heimgesucht, wobei ein anderer vor ihnen bewahrt wird. Hab Barmherzigkeit mit jenen, die von den falschen Taten heimgesucht werden, und zeige tiefe Dankbarkeit für Seinen (Allahs) Schutz.

...Amar was made conscious in an instant of a presence in the air, something which had been there all the time, but which he had never isolated and identified. The thing was in him, he was a part of it, as was the man opposite him, and it was a part of them; it whispered to them that time was short, that the world they lived in was approaching its end, and beyond was unfathomable darkness. It was the premonition of inevitable defeat and annihilation, and it had always been there with them and in them, as intangible and as real as the night around them. Amar pulled two loose cigarettes out of his pocket and handed one to the potter. "Ah, the Moslems, the Moslems!" he sighed. "Who knows what's going to happen to them?

Never be saddened by what you lose in this world,When you have Islam and good health with you.If you lose something that you were rushing towards,Then the fact that you lost it is sufficient.لا تأس في الدنيا على فائت *** وعندك الإسلام والعافيةإن فات أمر كنت تسعى له *** ففيهما من فائت كافيه

Ibn al-Khatib says: Ibn Battutah has a modest share of the sciences. He journeyed to the East in the month of Rajab 725 [1325], travelled through its lands, penetrated into Iraq al-Ajam, then entered India, Sind and China, and returned through Yemen. In India, the king appointed him to the office of qadi. He came away later and returned to the Maghrib [...]. Our Shaykh Abu l-Barakat Ibn al-Balfiqi told us of many strange things which Ibn Battutah had seen. Among them was that he claimed to have entered Constantinople and to have seen in its church twelve thousands bishops. He subsequently crossed the Strait to the Spanish coast [...]. Thereafter the ruler of Fez summoned him and commanded him to commit his travels to writing.

On the ethics of war the Quran and the New Testament are worlds apart. Whereas Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, the Quran tells us, 'Whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him' (2:194). The New Testament says nothing about how to wage war. The Quran, by contrast, is filled with just-war precepts. Here war is allowed in self-defense (2:190; 22:39), but hell is the punishment for killing other Muslims (4:93), and the execution of prisoners of war is explicitly condemned (47:4). Whether in the abstract is is better to rely on a scripture that regulates war or a scripture that hopes war away is an open question, but no Muslim-majority country has yet dropped an atomic bomb in war.

اما النقاب فهو مخالفة جنائية. لماذا؟ لان المرأة المنقبة التي لا تظهر ملامح وجهها اشبه بسيارة تسير في الشوارع بدون لوحة ارقام .

It is a great shame for anyone to listen to the accusation that Islam is a lie and that Muhammad was a fabricator and a deceiver. We saw that he remained steadfast upon his principles, with firm determination; kind and generous, compassionate, pious, virtuous, with real manhood, hardworking and sincere. Besides all these qualities, he was lenient with others, tolerant, kind, cheerful and praiseworthy and perhaps he would joke and tease his companions. He was just, truthful, smart, pure, magnanimous and present-minded; his face was radiant as if he had lights within him to illuminate the darkest of nights; he was a great man by nature who was not educated in a school nor nurtured by a teacher as he was not in need of any of this.

Wahai saudara yang budiman, raja (pemimpin) dalam alam ada tiga perkara, pangkat raja ada tiga macam. Yang memegang lahir dalam negeri lahir saja, yang perintah atas rakyat hukum adat kebiasaan dunia, itulah raja dalam alam yang memegang lahir saja. Wajib kita ikut seperti yang diperintahkannya, jika bersatu dengan agama. Perihal tidak bersatu dengan syara' (agama), janganlah kita turut seperti apa yang dikatakannya. Kedua, bagi raja yang memerintah hukum batin, yang memerintah jalan agama, itulah ahlus syari'ah, tempat yang memegang jalan agama. Wajib kita ikuti apa yang disuruhnya, siapa yang tidak patuh akan mendapat bala."(dikutip dari tulisan Teuku Ibrahim Alfian, dalam "Mengenal Masyarakat Aceh yang Sedang Membangun")

It is known that the Quran leaves an analytical reader the impression of disarrangement, and that it seems to be a compound of diverse elements. Nevertheless, the Quran is life, not literature. Islam is a way of living rather than a way of thinking. The only authentic comment of the Quran can be life, and as we know, it was the life of the prophet Muhammad. Islam is in its written form (the Quran) may seem disorderly, but in the life of Muhammad it proves itself to be a natural union of love and force, the sublime and the real, the divine and the human. This explosive compound of religion and politics produced enormous force in the life of the peoples who accepted it. In one moment, Islam has coincided with the very essence of life.

It must be constantly remembered that the Qu r’ān is not just descriptive but is primarily prescriptive. Both the content of its message and the power of the form in which it is conveyed are designed not so much to "inform" men in any ordinary sense of the word as to change their character. The psychological impact and the moral import of its statements, therefore, have a primaryrole. Phrases like "God has sealed their hearts, blinded their eyes, deafened them to truth” in the Qur’ān do have a descriptive meaning in terms of the psychological processes described earlier; but even more primarily in such contexts, they have a definite psychological intention: to change the ways of men in the right direction.

When the meat platter was passed to me, I didn't even know what the meat was; usually, you couldn't tell, anyway-but it was suddenly as though _don't eat any more pork_ flashed on a screen before me.I hesitated, with the platter in mid-air; then I passed it along to the inmate waiting next to me. He began serving himself; abruptly, he stopped. I remember him turning, looking surprised at me.I said to him, "I don't eat pork."The platter then kept on down the table.It was the funniest thing, the reaction, and the way that it spread. In prison, where so little breaks the monotonous routine, the smallest thing causes a commotion of talk. It was being mentioned all over the cell block by night that Satan didn't eat pork.

أعتقد أن شيئاً مشابهاً يحدث مع كل من يمتلك مبدأ وقضية، يأتي من يساومه عليها. ربما يكون ذلك جزءاً من طبيعة الامتحان الذي لابد منه.

The rejection of Western democracy derives from the same rejection of secularism but was further sharpened by the Saudi Arabian establishment’s aversion to democracy’s subversive streak and the threat it posed to the Saudi monarchy if unleashed. Saudi scholars such as Sheikh Bakr Ibn Abu Zaid consistently attacked democracy and the freedoms it flaunted as anti-Islamic. Mohammed Yusuf was heavily influenced by the writings of Saudi-based scholars such as Bakr Ibn Abu Zaid, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ibn Abd-Allah Ibn Baaz (1910-99), and Sheikh Muhammad al-Amin ash Shanqiti (1907-73). As mentioned before, all of Yusuf’s opponents side-stepped the issue of democracy being un-Islamic, thereby making the issue appear incontestable or settled.