Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
This world isn't perfect. That means it isn't perfectly good; but it isn't perfectly bad, either. The ease comes with the hardship. Shift the focus of what you see, and your experience of this life will change.
Blessings come in packages of two. With every blessing is a test. So don't ever envy people who seem to have more than you. The more blessings, the more tests. And the greater the blessing, the harder the test.
You keep running after the love of the people, but you’ll never get it. And what you do get, will never be enough. The hole inside you is too big. You see, it was made by God, for God. How could anything less fill it?
When the pain overtakes you, reach inside. Gather the broken pieces, and hand them to God. Ask Him to remake your heart. Different, this time. Stronger. More beautiful. This is how we are made, and remade by the Maker.
Sometimes you search so hard for words. You look for a way to interpret the language of this heart and the unspoken bond you feel. But in the end you are left with nothing but silence. And deep down you hope it’s understood.
Your life is nothing more than a love story. Between you and God. Nothing more. Every person, every experience, every gift, every loss, every pain is sent to your path for one reason and one reason only: to bring you back to Him.
The greatest virtue is not in forgiving those who apologize, or in being kind to those who are kind to you. The biggest virtue is in forgiving even those who never apologize, and in being kind to even those who are not kind to you.
If you wonder how you'll get through this new heartbreak, just think back. Remember all you've been through in the past. And how each time you swore, you'd never get through it. But you did. And look where you're at now. This too shall pass!
When someone hurts you, your first thought may be to wish you had never met them at all. But remember that even those who've hurt you, came into your life for a reason, and left for a reason. It’s for the best and healing starts with acceptance.
Don't ever be afraid of giving. Give. Give of your time, your forgiveness, your understanding, your love. Give of your money. Give to the creation, and you'll be given by the Creator. Be generous, and the Most Generous will be generous with you.
When you're faced with a choice, remember this: Everything else will pass away. Your family. Your friends. Your material possessions. Your beauty. Your youth. Your life. And there is only one thing that remains. Ask yourself: Which are you chasing?
If you want to kill something, neglect it. It happens in both good and bad. Neglect a relationship, it dies. Neglect your iman, it dies. But the same principal applies when you want to kill something like a thought or a desire. Neglect it, it dies.
There are internal chains and external chains. All the external chains in the world won't enslave you, if you are free inside. And all the external 'freedom' in the world won't liberate you, if you are chained inside. Let go. And you'll know Freedom.
We will be asked, "what did you love most in this world? What did you spend life doing? What did you run after? Will it last? The things that you chased, will they last? Will they help you, or will they hurt you when the illusion of this life has passed?"
To empty the heart does not mean to not love. On the contrary, true love, as God intented it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment. The process of first emptying the heart can be found in the beginning half of the shahada (declaration of faith).
When you fall in love with a work of art, you’d die to meet the artist. I am a student of the galleries of Pacific sunsets, full moon rises on the ocean, the clouds from an airplane, autumn forests in Raleigh, first fallen snows. And I’m dying to meet the artist.
When someone shows you their heart, their past, their wounds, they have entrusted you with the deepest part of themselves. It is the part of themselves that makes them uniquely beautiful. To be trusted in this way is a great honor. Guard that trust with your life.
If you think you're too far from Allah to return, and your 'past' continues to own you, just remember that Malik ibn Dinar (RA) was an alcoholic, and Omar (RA) was on his way to assassinate the Prophet (pbuh) before they became two of the greatest souls to walk the earth!
Oh external worshiper, know that worship without heart is motions. Oh seeker of knowledge, know that knowledge without purification is a dangerous weapon of the ego. Oh activist, know that work without orientation of heart is fruitless. Oh lover, know that love without God is pain.
Know that transformation sometimes begins with a fall. So never curse the fall. The ground is where humility lives. Take it. Learn it. Breathe it in. And then come back stronger, humbler and more aware of your need for Him. Come back having seen your own nothingness and His greatness.
God tells me to cover myself, to hide my beauty and to tell the world that I’m not here to please men with my body; I’m here to please God. God elevates the dignity of a woman’s body by commanding that it be respected and covered, shown only to the deserving - only to the man I marry.
There will come a day when a person would be willing to give everything they ever loved, everything they ever owned, everything they ever chased in this life, everything between the heavens and earth...just for the chance to come back here and make just one sajdah (prostration). Just one.
Never lose hope. Stay close to Allah and when you mess up, go back to Him. Never, ever stop going back to Him. Repent often. Cry to Allah. And hold on tight-with your life-to His remembrance and to prayer. If you do this, you may get wet, but insha Allah never drown in this ocean of dunya.
When you have friends, don’t expect your friends to fill your emptiness. When you get married, don’t expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you’re an activist, don’t put your hope in the results. When you’re in trouble don’t depend on yourself. Don’t depend on people. Depend on God.
T]here is no other purpose of my existence except to know, love and get closer to God. This is the one and only reason why I was created. And this is the most essential realization, as it defines everything else I do or believe. It defines all things around me, and everything I experience in life.
Do you ever wonder why often you can't have the things you want most? Perhaps if you got them in this life, they would distract you from Him. Perhaps He withholds some things that you love in this life to keep your heart from being distracted...and then gives those things to you in the next. Forever.
The people will come and go. Sometimes they'll be there for you. Sometimes they wont. Some will love you, some will not. This tide was never meant to be still. Step away from time to time. And know that only a heart fixed on the unmoving spot can ride the waves of this ever-changing, ever-fading life.
My value as a woman is not measured by the size of my waist or the number of men who like me. My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life-despite what fashion magazines say-is something more sublime than just looking good for men.
Everything you say or allow into your eyes or ears becomes data that is stored in your heart. That data is later replayed during your prayer. If you want to know what is filling your heart, look at what you think about in your prayer. If you want to guard your heart, guard your eyes, ears, and tongue.
Most of all, we must never be deceived. We must never allow ourselves to think that anything in this world succeeds, fails, is given, taken, done, or undone without Allah. It is only by our connection to our Creator that we rise or fall in life, in our relationship with our world—and with all of humanity.
Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn't about what others can give you because your empty. It is about what you can give others because you're already full.
This world cannot break you—unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys—unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while—take them back. This isn’t the End. You don’t have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner: God.
Some people may complicate it for you, but the formula is simple: Love God more than anything else. More than your ego. More than your money. More than your desires...More than your sleep at dawn. Love God more than anything else, and submission comes natural. Love God more than anything else, and all goodness will follow.
Shaytan will tell you that you’re not worthy, so give up. But his traps are based on lies. When was any of it because of *your* worth? It was all because of His mercy, His generosity, His love of giving, and forgiving. And those qualities don’t change because you’re messing up. Just seek them. Call Him by His mercy, not by your deeds.
So often we think that Allah only tests us with hardships, but this isn't true. Allah also tests with ease. He tests us with na`im (blessings) and with the things we love, and it is often in these tests that so many of us fail. We fail because when Allah gives us these blessings, we unwittingly turn them into false idols in the heart.
When we can’t marry the person we had in mind, our inability to look beyond may even blind sight us from someone who is in fact better for us. When we don’t get hired, or we lose something dear to us, it’s hard to take a step back and notice the bigger picture. Often Allah takes things away from us, only to replace them with something greater.
Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal. So the yearning for that type of life is a part of our being. The problem is that we try to find that here. And so we create ageless creams and cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to hold on-in an attempt to mold this world into what it is not, and will never be.
For a wound to heal, you have to clean it out. Again, and again, and again. And this cleaning process stings. The cleaning of a wound hurts. Yes. Healing takes so much work. So much persistence. And so much patience. But every process has an end and an appointed term. Your healing will come... And like all created things, your worldly pain will die.
I tell you to keep going, not because it's easy. Not because it doesn't hurt. I tell you to keep going because there's no other way. To stop is to die. Life is in motion. In growth. In change. Life is in seeking and in finding. Life is in redemption. Each moment is a new birth. A new chance to come back, to get it right. A new chance to make it better.
Real love brings about calm-not inner torment. True love allows you to be at peace with yourself and with God. That is why Allah says: “that you may dwell in tranquility.” Hawa is the opposite. Hawa will make you miserable. And just like a drug, you will crave it always, but never be satisfied. You will chase it to your own detriment, but never reach it.
So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Sometimes we fail to recognize the direct connection between the pain in our lives and our relationship with Allah SWT
I am always shocked to discover how many people believe that hardships are a punishment from God! When people face tests or see others facing tests, they assume Allah must be angry with them. SubhannAllah! Remember which people were tested the most: The Prophets! And they were the closest to Allah. Every hardship is good for you-if it brings you closer to Him!
Many years ago, our father Ibrahim (AS) made a choice. He loved his son. But He loved God more. The commandment came to sacrifice his son. But it wasn't his son that was slaughtered. It was his attachment to anything that could compete with his love for God. So let us ask ourselves in these beautiful days of sacrifice, which attachments do we need to slaughter?
As Muslim women, we have been liberated from this silent bondage. We don’t need society’s standard of beauty or fashion, to define our worth. We don’t need to become just like men to be honored, and we don’t need to wait for a prince to save or complete us. Our worth, our honor, our salvation, and our completion lies not in the slave. But, in the Lord of the slave.
And so in the heart of such a believer is a sort of paradise. That is the paradise that Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on his soul, spoke of when he said: 'Truly, there is a Heaven in this world, [and] whoever does not enter it, will not enter the Heaven of the next world.' And in that heaven, complete peace is not something of a moment. It is a state, eternal.
On that Day, we will see the true reality. On that Day, we will realize that two rak`at (units) of prayer were greater than everything in the heavens and the earth. We will realize the priceless check that was left on our doorstep every night as we slept. There will come a day when we would give up everything under the sky just to come back and pray those two rak`at.
To all those broken or hopeless, I have learned this: Be grateful for every single person who was part of your story. The ones that hurt you. The ones that helped you. The ones that came, and the ones that left. They all taught you. Don't think for a moment that any of it was random. There are no oversights with God. Only perfectly crafted chapters in each unique journey.
I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.
I think we all carry within us different versions of ourselves. Our true, greatest, most honest versions of ourselves can either be developed and nourished, or it can remain dead from neglect. Most people opt for the easiest version rather than the best. But in the end which version lives, which version thrives and which version dies, depends on the choices we make and the people in our lives.
They say you don't get over someone until you find someone or something better. As humans, we don't deal well with emptiness. Any empty space must be filled. Immediately. The pain of emptiness is too strong. It compels the victim to fill that place. A single moment with that empty spot causes excruciating pain. That's why we run from distraction to distraction and from attachment to attachment.