Another post for today… three posts in a day….

This I found when browsing through internet and some information about Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad (more about him here)… Just to share some interesting contentions (from him, I think) found from this website http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/default.htm

1. The more we have the less we are.
2. The East is content without form; the West is form without content.
3. It is as fallacious to assert that Islam is unsuited to the age as it is to believe that the age is suited to Islam.
4. Islam is a hidden treasure longing to be known.
5. Truth is the further shore of love
6. To blame others for our misfortunes is always a victory for the nafs
7. We should not do as we like; but we should like what we should do.
8. It is only when you truly don’t care what people think that you truly don’t need to care what people think.
9. True religion invites us to become better people. False religion tells us that this has already occurred.
10. Trying to be loved is not the best way of becoming lovable.
11. We need less self-righteousness and more self-knowledge.
12. Where the roots are weak, the branches are stiff. Where the roots are firm, the branches are supple.
13. Censorship of the press is less subversive than censorship by the press.
14. To be reminded of the greed of others and the poverty of the self is to be reminded of the poverty of others and the greed of the self.
15. It is better that the injustices of others should stand than that our own injustices should stand.
16. Seek, and you will be found.
17. It is better to appreciate what you do not have than to have what you do not appreciate.
18. The permanent conversion table: the addition must equal the square of what is subtracted.
19. The weaker the homework, the stronger the ideology. The stronger the homework, the stronger the din
20. How easy it is to forget how easy it is to forget!
21. The materialist argument against women: public performance equals fulfillment.
22. Islam was the sharpest of all medieval Western problems of theodicy. The West is the sharpest of all problems for modern Muslim theodicy.
23. Is alcohol the only self-imposed mental disorder?
24. Muhasaba: you will not move forwards until you look backwards.
25. We have become too weak even to close our eyes.
26. Showing the false to be false does not prove the truth to be true; but not vice-versa.
27. Religion is faith, culture and sensibility, none of which may change alone.
28. Only be proud of your works to the extent that you remember that they are not yours.
29. Because we are worldly we are worldless.
30. Nothing is more expensive than being nowhere.
31. Those who curse do not transform; those who do not curse transform.
32. All Islam offers is God.
33. The fact that we so regularly misunderstand each other is a proof of Islam’s universality.
34. Those that mind the state must mind their state of mind.
35. Jihad: before drawing your sword, learn how to open your eyes.
36. If you want truth to be accepted, you must be accepted. If you want to be accepted, proclaim what you can accept.
37. Atheism: the belief that water originates in the well.
38. Islam: the transformation of nature into culture.
39. If you can’t beat them, be joined by them.
40. Do not ask, ‘Where is God?’, but ask, ‘How am I?’
41. Those that follow a religion that cannot create a civilisation will create a civilisation that cannot follow a religion.
42. Modernity is the teaching of perfect misunderstanding.
43. For ignorance to submit to knowledge, the many must submit to the One.
44. Modern Islam: triumphalism without a triumph.
45. Nothing is difficult, except in our thoughts.
46. Truth is too big to fit into our minds, but our minds are small enough to fit into Truth.
47. Faith is not faith unless it seeks understanding.
48. Nothing is more risky than the thought that the world has been ‘secularised’.
49. It takes courage to bear the consequences of cowardice.
50. Life is vocation, not vacation.
51. The beginning of Islam is wonder at the world; its end is to be the wonder of the world.
52. We are Muslims because we practice Islam, not vice versa.
53. Know when to feel ashamed of feeling ashamed.
54. We are punished because we don’t know that we deserve to be punished.
55. It is not possible to be right in a way that is barren.
56. Male and female cannot be equal, for they are mutually superior.
57. Modernity deprives us of the most basic right of all: the right to be traditional.
58. Islam is mainly threatened by those who mainly say that Islam is threatened.
59. Capitalism: the law of the jungle that destroys the jungle.
60. Remember, today, everyone is weak.
61. It is the Muslim, not Islam, that cries out to be reformed.
62. Modernity offers more and more ways of being the same sort of thing.
63. We are too busy being right to have time for God.
64. We must not pray in order to name ourselves; we must name ourselves in order to pray.
65. Unless one has the Islam of the Name, one has only the name of Islam.
66. Only when distant from God do we crave what is distant from God.
67. A faith that is only a social consequence will mainly be concerned with its own social consequences.
68. So you want to get your own back? Remember, it isn’t your own .
69. Life is a minefield only if we always say ‘Mine!’
70. Religion desires to change the age. The age desires to change religion .
71. Should we distinguish the shadows from the light? If so, how?
72. We claim the whole of the truth for ourselves, but not to have monopolised it.
73. They are not the solution; God is the solution.
74. Which is the bigger prison: Islam in the eyes of modernity, or modernity in the eyes of Islam?
75. Remember: the history of Islam is the history of the Muslim ego.
76. Error exists to compliment truth, not to complement it.
77. Blame yourself, not the age. Blame the age, not others.
78. Our condition is ignorance of our condition.
79. Fatwa: only the mad do not pray. Taqwa: only the mad do not pray.
80. There is no worship without knowledge. We have been created to know Him.
81. There is no knowledge of Him without love of beauty. We have been created to love beauty.
82. Others are our fellow-travellers, even if they have lost the road.
83. He that struggles to progress, though he has not been shown the road, is better than he that stands upon the road, pridefully mocking.
84. Islam is no meteorite fallen upon Earth; it is its invisible, unregarded core.
85. Trust in God, not in your trust in God.
86. A mosque is not built, it is written.
87. I am my weakness; You are my strength.
88. Remember: you once knew the whole Qur’an.
89. To learn truth is always to relearn. To lapse into falsehood is not always to relapse.
90. Do not say: Do you agree with me? but say: Do we agree?
91. Only those who know themselves to be unworthy are worthy.
92. If you are good, pretend to be bad. If you are bad, don’t pretend to be good.
93. Do not be complacent. Most people judge religions by their followers, not by their doctrines.

Final Word: Think…