Invite To Islam Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Invite To Islam. Here they are! All 52 of them:

When Allah makes us aware of a sin we committed, He is not punishing us, but rather inviting us toward His presence. In this way, the moment we are drawn to sincere repentance, we are in effect unveiling the forgiveness that Allah has already written for us to experience. Someone asked the great eighth-century mystic Rabia Al-Adawiyya, “I have sinned much; if I repent, will Allah forgive me?” She profoundly replied, “It is the opposite; if Allah forgives you, you are capable of repentance.
A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam)
In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big – ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith.
Terry Eagleton (The Meaning of Life)
We clean our house when we invite someone, we must clean our hearts if we want to invite Allah.
Muslim Smiles
To hold that the Qur’ān believes in an absolute determinism of human behavior, denying free choice on man's part, is not only to deny almost the entire content of theQu r’ān, but to undercut its very basis: the Qur’ān by its own claim is an invitation to man to come to the right path (hudan lil-nās).
Fazlur Rahman (Major Themes of the Qur'an)
The reality that the West currently enjoys far more wealth and temporal power than any nation under Islam is viewed by devout Muslims as a diabolical perversity, and this situation will always stand as an open invitation for jihad. Insofar as a person is Muslim—that is, insofar as he believes that Islam constitutes the only viable path to God and that the Koran enunciates it perfectly—he will feel contempt for any man or woman who doubts the truth of his beliefs. What is more, he will feel that the eternal happiness of his children is put in peril by the mere presence of such unbelievers in the world. If such people happen to be making the policies under which he and his children must live, the potential for violence imposed by his beliefs seems unlikely to dissipate.
Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)
If you are determined to become a complete Islamic radical and are ready to undergo circumcision, then I invite you to Moscow. We are a multiconfessional nation. We have experts in this sphere as well. I will recommend the operation be conducted so that nothing on you will grow again.”49
Steven Lee Myers (The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin)
The Israelis have not been the worst conquerors of Jerusalem: they have not slaughtered their predecessors, as the Crusaders did, nor have they permanently excluded them, as the Byzantines banned the Jews from the city. On the other hand, they have not reached the same high standards as Caliph Umar. As we reflect on the current unhappy situation, it becomes a sad irony that on two occasions in the past, it was an islamic conquest of Jerusalem that made it possible for Jews to return to their holy city. Umar and Saladin both invited Jews to settle in Jerusalem when they replaced Christian rulers there.
Karen Armstrong (Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong (1997-04-29))
Oh Allah, distance me from my sins just as You have distanced the east from the west. Oh Allah, purify me of my sins as a white robe is purified of filth. Oh Allah, cleanse me of my sins with snow, water, and ice.”10 Oh Allah, I lovingly await Your invitation to come visit You, both in this life and the next. I place my hope in Your mercy and place my trust in Your perfect timing. In Your generous names I pray, Ameen.
A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam (Studying Qur'an & Hadith Book 2))
So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There’s no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn’t work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn’t say, ‘Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.’ In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That’s what perfect justice is.” I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. “But I thought God is forgiving. You’re implying that because of justice, God can’t forgive.” “God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I’m saying is that God’s desire to forgive doesn’t negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God’s justice demands it.
David Gregory (Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering)
In the early days of Islam, when Muhammad was going from door to door trying to persuade the polytheists to abandon their idols of worship, he was inviting them to accept that there was no god but Allah and that he was Allah’s messenger, much as Christ had asked the Jews to accept that he was the son of God. However, after ten years of trying this kind of persuasion, Muhammad and his small band of believers went to Medina and from that moment Muhammad’s mission took on a political dimension. Unbelievers were still invited to submit to Allah, but, after Medina, they were attacked if they refused. If defeated, they were given the option either to convert or to die. (Jews and Christians could retain their faith if they submitted to paying a special tax.)
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
this reaction. This was on college campuses, exactly the kind of environment where I had expected curiosity, lively debate, and, yes, the thrill and energy of like-minded activists. Instead almost every campus audience I encountered bristled with anger and protest. I was accustomed to radical Muslim students from my experience as an activist and a politician in Holland. Any time I made a public speech, they would swarm to it in order to shout at me and rant in broken Dutch, in sentences so fractured you wondered how they qualified as students at all. On college campuses in the United States and Canada, by contrast, young and highly articulate people from the Muslim student associations would simply take over the debate. They would send e-mails of protest to the organizers beforehand, such as one (sent by a divinity student at Harvard) that protested that I did not “address anything of substance that actually affects Muslim women’s lives” and that I merely wanted to “trash” Islam. They would stick up posters and hand out pamphlets at the auditorium. Before I’d even stopped speaking they’d be lining up for the microphone, elbowing away all non-Muslims. They spoke in perfect English; they were mostly very well-mannered; and they appeared far better assimilated than their European immigrant counterparts. There were far fewer bearded young men in robes short enough to show their ankles, aping the tradition that says the Prophet’s companions dressed this way out of humility, and fewer girls in hideous black veils. In the United States a radical Muslim student might have a little goatee; a girl may wear a light, attractive headscarf. Their whole demeanor was far less threatening, but they were omnipresent. Some of them would begin by saying how sorry they were for all my terrible suffering, but they would then add that these so-called traumas of mine were aberrant, a “cultural thing,” nothing to do with Islam. In blaming Islam for the oppression of women, they said, I was vilifying them personally, as Muslims. I had failed to understand that Islam is a religion of peace, that the Prophet treated women very well. Several times I was informed that attacking Islam only serves the purpose of something called “colonial feminism,” which in itself was allegedly a pretext for the war on terror and the evil designs of the U.S. government. I was invited to one college to speak as part of a series of
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations)
The Islamic revolution in Iran is a positive development. At the same time, the Islamic revolution of Afghanistan, sprung exclusively from spiritual roots, dealt a heavy blow to the communist regime in the former Soviet Union. In face of that revolution, the red Soviet empire had to concede that it is incapable, in spite of its military superiority, to defeat the Mujaheddin, whose main weapons were their right and their spiritual strength. Another quite new situation appeared as a consequence of the Islamic revolution in Iran, that destroyed the Zionist rule in that country and shook its foundations in that part of the world. Khomeini's letter to Gorbachev, in which he was inviting the latter to convert to Islam, had great symbolic power! What is new again is the movement of Islamic rebirth and the continuous decay of the strength of the colonial government bodies directed from afar by Israel in many Islamic countries." "The Islamic system has remained stable in Iran even after the death of Khomeini and the change in the person of the leader and of the leadership group the only one to remain stable in the entire Islamic world. On the contrary, the demise of the Shah meant at the same time the collapse of his regime, his artificial form of government, and his army. All that went to the dust-bin of history. The same fate awaits the other regimes that prevail in the muslim world. Israel knows that very well. She tries desperately to cause the wheel of history to stand still. However, any strike against Iran or against the growing Islamic movements, will cause the anger of the muslim masses to grow, and the fire of the Islamic revolution to ignite. Nobody will be able to suppress that revolution.
Otto Ernst Remer
Looking at a situation like the Israel-Palestine conflict, Americans are likely to react with puzzlement when they see ever more violent and provocative acts that target innocent civilians. We are tempted to ask: do the terrorists not realize that they will enrage the Israelis, and drive them to new acts of repression? The answer of course is that they know this very well, and this is exactly what they want. From our normal point of view, this seems incomprehensible. If we are doing something wrong, we do not want to invite the police to come in and try and stop us, especially if repression will result in the deaths or imprisonment of many of our followers. In a terrorist war, however, repression is often valuable because it escalates the growing war, and forces people to choose between the government and the terrorists. The terror/repression cycle makes it virtually impossible for anyone to remain a moderate. By increasing polarization within a society, terrorism makes the continuation of the existing order impossible. Once again, let us take the suicide bombing example. After each new incident, Israeli authorities tightened restrictions on Palestinian communities, arrested new suspects, and undertook retaliatory strikes. As the crisis escalated, they occupied or reoccupied Palestinian cities, destroying Palestinian infrastructure. The result, naturally, was massive Palestinian hostility and anger, which made further attacks more likely in the future. The violence made it more difficult for moderate leaders on both sides to negotiate. In the long term, the continuing confrontation makes it more likely that ever more extreme leaders will be chosen on each side, pledged not to negotiate with the enemy. The process of polarization is all the more probably when terrorists deliberately choose targets that they know will cause outrage and revulsion, such as attacks on cherished national symbols, on civilians, and even children. We can also think of this in individual terms. Imagine an ordinary Palestinian Arab who has little interest in politics and who disapproves of terrorist violence. However, after a suicide bombing, he finds that he is subject to all kinds of official repression, as the police and army hold him for long periods at security checkpoints, search his home for weapons, and perhaps arrest or interrogate him as a possible suspect. That process has the effect of making him see himself in more nationalistic (or Islamic) terms, stirs his hostility to the Israeli regime, and gives him a new sympathy for the militant or terrorist cause. The Israeli response to terrorism is also valuable for the terrorists in global publicity terms, since the international media attack Israel for its repression of civilians. Hamas military commander Salah Sh’hadeh, quoted earlier, was killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza in 2002, an act which by any normal standards of warfare would represent a major Israeli victory. In this case though, the killing provoked ferocious criticism of Israel by the U.S. and western Europe, and made Israel’s diplomatic situation much more difficult. In short, a terrorist attack itself may or may not attract widespread publicity, but the official response to it very likely will. In saying this, I am not suggesting that governments should not respond to terrorism, or that retaliation is in any sense morally comparable to the original attacks. Many historical examples show that terrorism can be uprooted and defeated, and military action is often an essential part of the official response. But terrorism operates on a logic quite different from that of most conventional politics and law enforcement, and concepts like defeat and victory must be understood quite differently from in a regular war.
Philip Jenkins (Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know about Terrorism (Social Problems and Social Issues))
However, ana al-haqq as it stands has raised a few literary questions as well and, within the tradition of mystic poetry, the attitude preserved in Hallaj's expression has given rise to mixed reactions regarding its content. It is held that it is an exaggeration of subjective experience, and ana—the personal "I"—shows leanings toward megalomania and egotism. It is the personal "I" which overshadows al-haqq, and thereby invites total attention to itself. In fact, the personal "I" absorbs al-haqq, and reaches out to the romantic cult of the egostistical sublime. In this context, the truth tends to become subjective and, therefore, relative, and in its social implications it shows the possibility of numerous diversions. Extreme individualism, in contrast to institutionalism, is also held to be related to ana al-haqq. The personal "I" is supposed to be potentionally explosive and destructive for values of the Establishment. A.J. Arberry has summed up the position by saying that Hallaj had dared to declare that his direct awareness of God was for him a clearer proof than both revelation and reason.
Gilani Kamran (Ana Al-Haqq Reconsidered)
To hail a religion for its compatibility with a secular society was decidedly not a neutral gesture. Secularism was no less bred of the sweep of Christian history than were Orban's barbed-wire fences. Naturally, for it to function as its exponents wished it to function, this could never be admitted. The West, over the duration of its global hegemony, had become skilled in the art of repackaging Christian concepts for non-Christian audiences. A doctrine such as that of human rights was far likelier to be signed up to if its origins among the canon lawyers of medieval Europe could be kept concealed. The insistence of United Nations agencies on "the antiquity and broad acceptance of the conception of the rights of man” was a necessary precondition for their claim to a global, rather than a merely Western, jurisdiction. Secularism, in an identical manner, depended on the care with which it covered its tracks. If it were to be embraced by Jews, or Muslims, or Hindus as a neutral holder of the ring between them and people of other faiths, then it could not afford to be seen as what it was: a concept that had little meaning outside of a Christian context. In Europe, the secular had for so long been secularised that it was easy to forget its ultimate origins. To sign up to its premises was unavoidably to become just that bit more Christian. Merkel, welcoming Muslims co Germany, was inviting them to take their place in a continent that was not remotely neutral in its understanding of religion: a continent in which the division of church and state was absolutely assumed to apply to Islam
Tom Holland (Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World)
In the fall of 2006, I participated in a three-day conference at the Salk Institute entitled Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason, and Survival. This event was organized by Roger Bingham and conducted as a town-hall meeting before an audience of invited guests. Speakers included Steven Weinberg, Harold Kroto, Richard Dawkins, and many other scientists and philosophers who have been, and remain, energetic opponents of religious dogmatism and superstition. It was a room full of highly intelligent, scientifically literate people—molecular biologists, anthropologists, physicists, and engineers—and yet, to my amazement, three days were insufficient to force agreement on the simple question of whether there is any conflict at all between religion and science. Imagine a meeting of mountaineers unable to agree about whether their sport ever entails walking uphill, and you will get a sense of how bizarre our deliberations began to seem. While at Salk, I witnessed scientists giving voice to some of the most dishonest religious apologies I have ever heard. It is one thing to be told that the pope is a peerless champion of reason and that his opposition to embryonic stem-cell research is both morally principled and completely uncontaminated by religious dogmatism; it is quite another to be told this by a Stanford physician who sits on the President’s Council on Bioethics. Over the course of the conference, I had the pleasure of hearing that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were examples of secular reason run amok, that the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad are not the cause of Islamic terrorism, that people can never be argued out of their beliefs because we live in an irrational world, that science has made no important contributions to our ethical lives (and cannot), and that it is not the job of scientists to undermine ancient mythologies and, thereby, “take away people’s hope”—all from atheist scientists who, while insisting on their own skeptical hardheadedness, were equally adamant that there was something feckless and foolhardy, even indecent, about criticizing religious belief. There were several moments during our panel discussions that brought to mind the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers: people who looked like scientists, had published as scientists, and would soon be returning to their labs, nevertheless gave voice to the alien hiss of religious obscurantism at the slightest prodding. I had previously imagined that the front lines in our culture wars were to be found at the entrance to a megachurch. I now realized that we have considerable work to do in a nearer trench.
Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values)
Said the Prophet, on him be peace: ‘On the Day of Resurrection, three people will find themselves on a ridge of black musk. They will have no reckoning to fear, nor any cause for alarm while human accounts are being settled. First, a man who recites the Quran to please God, Great and Glorious is He, and who leads the Prayer to people’s satisfaction. Second, a man who gives the Call to Prayer in a Mosque, inviting people to God, Great and Glorious is He, for the sake of His good pleasure. Third, a man who has a hard time making a living in this world, yet is not distracted from the work
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship)
The Islamic State’s ideology exerts powerful sway over a certain subset of the population. Life’s hypocrisies and inconsistencies vanish in its face. Musa Cerantonio and the Salafis I met in London are unstumpable: No question I posed left them stuttering. They lectured me garrulously and, if one accepts their premises, convincingly. To call them un-Islamic appears, to me, to invite them into an argument that they would win. If they had been froth-spewing maniacs, I might be able to predict that their movement would burn out as the psychopaths detonated themselves or became drone-splats, one by one. But these men spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar. I even enjoyed their company, and that frightened me as much as anything else.
Graeme Wood
These articles urged the gradual adoption of the Latin alphabet and prophesied that the change was bound to come. The writer propounded a problem, and invited a reply from the $eyhulislatn or the Fetva Emini:7 Franstzlar lslamiyetin esaslarnu pek makul bularak millet4e ihtida etmek istiyorlar! Acaba onlari Miisluman addedebilmek icin o pek zarif dillerinin Arap harfleriyle yazthnasi tart-t esasi mi ittihaz edilecek? 'Evet' cevabini beklemedigim halde alusam kemal-i cesar- etle'Siz bu zihniyetle diinyayi Musluman edemezsiniz' mukabelesinde bulunurum,'Hayir, beis yok' cevabtnt alirsam:'Biz Turklerin de Latin harflerini kullamnamiza miisaade bah. eder bir fetva veriniz' ricastnt serdedecegitn. Hayir, Fransizlar ne kadar az Arap iseler, biz de o kadar az Arabiz. The French, finding the principles of our religion very reasonable, wish to convert en masse to Islam! Before they can be accepted as Muslims, will it be obligatory for that very elegant language of theirs to be written in the Arabic letters? I do not expect the answer to be'Yes', but if it is I shall make so bold as to reply,'With this mentality you cannot make the world Muslim.' If I am given the answer'No, there is no harm in it' l shall make this request:'Give a fetva permitting us Turks also to use the Latin letters.' No, we are no more Arab than the French are.
Geoffrey Lewis (The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (Oxford Linguistics))
The New Yorker (The New Yorker) - Clip This Article on Location 1510 | Added on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 5:42:23 PM FICTION THE DUNIAZáT BY SALMAN RUSHDIE   In the year 1195, the great philosopher Ibn Rushd, once the qadi , or judge, of Seville and most recently the personal physician to the Caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub in his home town of Córdoba, was formally discredited and disgraced on account of his liberal ideas, which were unacceptable to the increasingly powerful Berber fanatics who were spreading like a pestilence across Arab Spain, and was sent to live in internal exile in the small village of Lucena, a village full of Jews who could no longer say they were Jews because they had been forced to convert to Islam. Ibn Rushd, a philosopher who was no longer permitted to expound his philosophy, all of whose writing had been banned and burned, felt instantly at home among the Jews who could not say they were Jews. He had been a favorite of the Caliph of the present ruling dynasty, the Almohads, but favorites go out of fashion, and Abu Yusuf Yaqub had allowed the fanatics to push the great commentator on Aristotle out of town. The philosopher who could not speak his philosophy lived on a narrow unpaved street in a humble house with small windows and was terribly oppressed by the absence of light. He set up a medical practice in Lucena, and his status as the ex-physician of the Caliph himself brought him patients; in addition, he used what assets he had to enter modestly into the horse trade, and also financed the making of tinajas , the large earthenware vessels, in which the Jews who were no longer Jews stored and sold olive oil and wine. One day soon after the beginning of his exile, a girl of perhaps sixteen summers appeared outside his door, smiling gently, not knocking or intruding on his thoughts in any way, and simply stood there waiting patiently until he became aware of her presence and invited her in. She told him that she was newly orphaned, that she had no source of income, but preferred not to work in the whorehouse, and that her name was Dunia, which did not sound like a Jewish name because she was not allowed to speak her Jewish name, and, because she was illiterate, she could not write it down. She told him that a traveller had suggested the name and said it was Greek and meant “the world,” and she had liked that idea. Ibn Rushd, the translator of Aristotle, did not quibble with her, knowing that it meant “the world” in enough tongues to make pedantry unnecessary. “Why have you named yourself after the world?” he asked her, and she replied, looking him in the eye as she spoke, “Because a world will flow from me and those who flow from me will spread across the world.” Being a man of reason, Ibn Rushd did not guess that the girl was a supernatural creature, a jinnia, of the tribe of female jinn: a grand princess of that tribe, on an earthly adventure, pursuing her fascination with human men in general and brilliant ones in particular.
Anonymous
It is important to realize, however, that the Crusades are not the only story of the Christian response to Islam during the Middle Ages. The fourth historical focus highlights the life and ministry of Raymond Lull (1232-1315), known as the Father of Islamic Apologetics.
Timothy Tennent (Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Invitation to Theological Studies Series))
Early on in his writings, Lull recognized the need to develop a Christian apologetic that specifically and directly responded to Islamic misunderstandings and objections to Christianity. Lull spent nine years learning Arabic and carefully studying Islamic philosophy and theology. Eventually he developed a multivolume, Trinitarian apologetic, known as Ars Generalis Ultima (The Ultimate General Art), which answered Islamic objections to Christianity and advocated a method for talking to Muslims that is sometimes known as the Lullian method. Lull was convinced that the military confrontation represented by the Crusades was a mistake. Rather, he believed that Muslims should be addressed in love, not hate, and by the force of logic, not the instruments of war.
Timothy Tennent (Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Invitation to Theological Studies Series))
Before killing a kafir, an unbeliever/infidel, a Muslim must first invite the kafir to embrace Islam. Osama bin Laden has now done so, inviting Americans to convert to Islam. In addition, a Fatwa (a religious opinion on Islamic law) is necessary.
John Price (The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America)
[...] un art sacré n’est pas nécessairement fait d’images, même pas au sens le plus large du terme. Il peut n’être que l’extériorisation pour ainsi dire muette d’un état contemplatif et, dans ce cas ou sous ce rapport, il ne reflétera pas des idées mais il transformera l’environnement qualitativement, en le faisant participer à un équilibre dont le centre de gravité est l’invisible. Il est facile de constater que telle est la nature de l’art islamique : son objet est avant tout l’environnement de l’homme – d’où le rôle dominant de l’architecture – et sa qualité est essentiellement contemplative. L’aniconisme n’amoindrit pas cette qualité, bien au contraire, car en excluant toute image qui invite l’homme à fixer son esprit sur quelque chose en dehors de lui-même, à projeter son âme en une forme « individualisante », il crée un vide. A cet égard, la fonction de l’art islamique est analogue à celle de la nature vierge – notamment du désert – qui favorise aussi la contemplation bien que, sous un autre angle, l’ordre créé par l’art s’oppose au chaos du paysage désertique. La prolifération de l’ornement dans l’art musulman ne contredit pas cette qualité de vide contemplatif. Au contraire, l’ornement à formes abstraites la corrobore par son rythme continu ou son caractère de tissage sans fin : au lieu de capter l’esprit et de l’entraîner dans quelque monde imaginaire, il dissout les « fixations » mentales, de même que la contemplation d’un cours d’eau, d’une flamme ou d’un feuillage frémissant dans le vent peut détacher la conscience de ses « idoles » intérieures.
Titus Burckhardt (Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (English and French Edition))
The patronage of devadāsī troupes by Muslims is also found in Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India (Shureef and Herklots 1832, lxxxii). This account notes that mēḷams are generally invited to perform at weddings, and mentions the nutwa (naṭṭuvaṉār) who leads the troupe. Professional dancers in Tanjore also performed in Muslim homes, particularly at the time of marriages. A mid-nineteenth-century painting from Tanjore currently held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2006AV2428– 01) depicts a Muslim marriage procession led by dancers performing in the “Hindustānī” style. The participation of Tanjore’s devadāsīs in Muslim weddings is also confirmed by musicologist B. M. Sundaram: “In Tanjore, there were some devadāsī dancers who used to give regular performances in the homes of Muslims, whenever marriages take place there. When someone in those Muslim families died, it was a custom for the devadāsī who danced in these homes to gift a goat for the [funerary] meal … It shows a mutual respect, a mutual affinity.” (Sundaram, personal communication)
Davesh Soneji (Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India (South Asia Across the Disciplines))
Il ne faudrait tout de même pas que les musulmans soient insidieusement invités à comprendre que la seule alternative au terrorisme serait de se conformer aux normes antitraditionnelles prônées par l’Occident. Lorsque, sous la menace, les Occidentaux exigent de musulmans qu’ils "reconnaissent l’État d’ Israël et renoncent à la violence", ils formulent une exigence qu’aucun croyant ne peut accepter. Il est faux d’affirmer que ceux qui opèrent cet amalgame ne sont pas hostiles à l’islâm : ils le sont, et il ne leur appartient pas, alors qu’ ils ignorent la religion islamique de manière systématique, de décider ce qui est conforme ou non à la shari‘a, à la loi traditionnelle propre à l’ islâm. Le devoir de tout musulman, et même de tout croyant, est de ne pas reconnaître la profanation inhérente à l’existence de l’État sioniste. Si on lui enjoint de reconnaître ce faux "Israël", en menaçant de l ’affamer s’ il refuse, c’est pour la défense de sa foi qu’ il devient un martyr, au moins en ce sens qu’ il accepte une souffrance pouvant éventuellement le conduire à la mort. On invite les musulmans à renoncer à la violence, tout en utilisant l’ intimidation pour les amener à agir contre leur volonté, c’est-à-dire en leur faisant violence. C’est dans le terme "violence" que réside l’ambiguïté. Il a été ordonné au Prophète Muhammad de "combattre les hommes jusqu’à ce qu’ ils disent : lâ ilâha illa Allâh (il n’y a pas de Divinité si ce n’ est Allâh)". Cet ordre divin concerne évidemment la communauté islamique et justifie le jihâd, la guerre sainte menée pour défendre le Droit d’Allâh et les droits de l’islâm. D’autre part, le Très-Haut a enjoint aux musulmans d’être "des témoins à l’encontre des hommes", c’est-à-dire à l’égard de ceux qui, sans avoir rejoint l’islâm, se réclament d’une révélation divine et d’une norme traditionnelle. C’est en vertu de cette injonction que les musulmans peuvent aujourd'hui interpeller l’Église catholique pour lui rappeler qu’ elle avait le devoir de ne pas reconnaître l’État juif et qu’elle s’est rendue coupable d’une faute, aux conséquences néfastes pour elle, en manquant à ce devoir. Nul ne peut reprocher à l’ islâm de combattre cet État et de mener une guerre sainte contre les égarements de l’Occident moderne. La seule question qui peut se poser est celle des moyens utilisés pour mener ce combat, étant bien entendu que le terrorisme est antitraditionnel par définition et que toute violence implique une brutalité contraire aux "bonnes manières d’agir" (makârim al-akhlâq) qui doivent prévaloir, même dans la manière de combattre et de faire la guerre. Cette question est alors de savoir s’ il est encore possible de mener une guerre vraiment sainte (jihâd) à notre époque où la force est exercée le plus souvent au moyen de la brutalité, de la violence et du terrorisme. L’immense hypocrisie de ceux qui accusent l’islâm d’être terroriste, c’est d’inverser les rapports et de les accuser en fait ... de se comporter comme des Occidentaux, ce qui est bien le comble de la contradiction !
Charles-André Gilis (La papauté contre l'Islam - Genèse d’une dérive)
As for Muslims who leave infidel lands, Awlaki invited them to come to Yemen. The Prophet had prophesied the appearance of an army of “twelve thousand” men who would “come out of Aden-Abyan” in the south to “give victory to Allah and His Messenger,” Muhammad. Awlaki believed the fulfillment of the prophecy was fast approaching.
William McCants (The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State)
It was too embarrassing to admit that a young woman was the most popular politician in the Islamic Republic. In the official tally she came in second, with slightly fewer votes than the older cleric—an injustice that must have riled Hashemi, given the nature of her platform. Hashemi had made her debut in politics by challenging conservative clerics who opposed women’s right to exercise in public. Using her standing as Rafsanjani’s daughter, she argued that there was nothing wrong with fully covered women exercising. An increasing number of old and young women already crowded parks to jog or play volleyball or badminton. But the Basij often harassed and intimidated them to discourage women from exercising. As part of her campaign to defend and expand women’s right to exercise, Hashemi built a bike path for women, increased women’s access to sports facilities such as golf courses and tennis courts, and set up the first women’s soccer and, eventually, rugby teams since the revolution. She also founded the Islamic Women’s Sport Foundation, through which she held games in Tehran involving Iranian athletes and Muslim women invited from other countries.
Nazila Fathi (The Lonely War)
The blasphemy law, whether Islamic or not, adopted by the majority of law markers display the respect for one's religious beliefs, within its moral, cultural, and religious-routes that abandon and restrict others, whether in a majority or minority, not to perform hatred, humiliation, insult, and disregard, and hurting the feelings, abusing its belief and its school of thought. As a fact, the blasphemy law executes a warning as traffic lights, to be careful for those who deliberately and knowingly behave to invite danger; which indeed, mirrors an initial of self-suicide. It is also protective and educational; whereas, opposing that means the license of freedom to abuse, insult, humiliate and create hatred, whenever one wants and desires for its motives on the name of freedom of press and speech. In this context and concept, if one criticises the will of the majority is a ridiculous view of point, which demonstrates and demands the minorities' authority on the law of majority that holds safeguard-prospects. As I realize that this law determines the peace, harmony, unity, and respect in multicultural societies; however, one should not practice that in the wrong and unjust way; it will be a personal-conduct to violate the law, which is not the definition of that law; it is a crime.
Ehsan Sehgal
The fragrance of the Beloved permeates every passage of this magnificent book, gently opening the gates of the heart and inviting the reader into a direct experience of that which the author so beautifully evokes. Whether you identify as a Muslim whose faith has perhaps grown weary or as someone who would like to taste of the essence of a tradition you do not understand, Secrets of Divine Love is a masterful map of the landscape of the soul on its journey home to the One who both transcends and dwells within all that is.
A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam (Studying Qur'an & Hadith Book 2))
When it seemed obvious to Napoleon that his force was too small to impose itself on the Egyptians, he then tried to make the local imams, cadis, muftis, and ulemas interpret the Koran in favor of the Grande Armée. To this end, the sixty ulemas who taught at the Azhar were invited to his quarters, given full military honors, and then allowed to be flattered by Napoleon's admiration for Islam and Mohammed and by his obvious veneration for the Koran, with which he seemed perfectly familiar. This worked, and soon the population of Cairo seemed to have lost its distrust of the occupiers.
Edward W. Said (Orientalism)
he tried to invite European commanders to become advisors to the military without requiring them to convert to Islam.
Billy Wellman (The Ottoman Empire: An Enthralling Guide to One of the Mightiest and Longest-Lasting Dynasties in World History (Europe))
The blasphemy law, whether Islamic or not, adopted by the majority of law markers display the respect for one's religious beliefs, within its moral, cultural, and religious-routes that abandon and restrict others, whether in a majority or minority, not to perform hatred, humiliation, insult, and disregard, and hurting the feelings, abusing its belief and its school of thought. As a fact, the blasphemy law executes a warning as traffic lights, to be careful for those who deliberately and knowingly behave to invite danger which indeed, mirrors an initial of self-suicide. It is also protective and educational, whereas opposing that means the license of freedom to abuse, insult, humiliate, and create hatred, whenever one wants and desires for its motives in the name of freedom of press and speech. In this context and concept, if one criticizes the will of the majority is a ridiculous view of point, which demonstrates and demands the minorities' authority on the law of majority that holds safeguard-prospects. As I realize that this law determines the peace, harmony, unity, and respect in multicultural societies; however, one should not practice that in the wrong and unjust way; it will be personal conduct to violate the law, which is not the definition of that law; it is a crime.
Ehsan Sehgal
The consensus remained that the good thing to do was to invite all migrants in. The bad thing was to suggest any limitations on their numbers. Or even the enforcement of laws already in place. As so often in the past the government weighed up the pros and cons of holding the line and decided not to hold it.
Douglas Murray (The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam)
The blasphemy law, whether Islamic or not, adopted by the majority of law markers displays respect for one's religious beliefs within its moral, cultural, and religious routes that abandon and restrict others, whether in a majority or minority, not to perform hatred, humiliation, insult, and disregard, and hurting the feelings, abusing its belief and its school of thought. As a fact, the blasphemy law executes a warning as traffic lights to be careful with those who deliberately and knowingly behave to invite danger, which, indeed, mirrors an initial of self-suicide. It is also protective and educational, whereas opposing that means the license of freedom to abuse, insult, humiliate and create hatred whenever one wants and desires for its motives in the name of freedom of the press and speech. In this context and concept, if one criticizes the will of the majority is a ridiculous view of the point, which demonstrates and demands the minorities' authority on the law of the majority that holds safeguard prospects. As I realize that this law determines the peace, harmony, unity, and respect in multicultural societies; however, one should not practice that in the wrong and unjust way; it will be a personal-conduct to violate the law, which is not the definition of that law; it is a crime.
Ehsan Sehgal
dlaurent The Ballad of Johnny Jihad (Down Desert Storm Way). © c. 2001 During the Gulf War (1990-1991), American Pro-Taliban Jihadist John Philip Walker Lindh was captured while serving with the enemy forces. Here is his tale in song and legend. My nowex at the time did not want me to run to the radio station with this, thought I’d look singularly ridiculii. The following, 'The Ballad of Johnny Jihad' is sung to the tune of 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' (1962), commonly known as 'The Beverly Hillbillies' song, the theme tune for the TV show series starring Buddy Ebsen. (Lyrics, Paul Henning, vocals Jerry Scoggins, Lester Flatt; master musicians of the art of the ballad and bluegrass ways, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs). The Ballad of Johnny Jihad (Sung) Come and listen to the story of Johnny Jihad, Who left home and country to study his Islam, And then one day he was shooting at our troops, So down through the camp did the government swoop. (Voice Over): ‘Al Que-da that is, Af-ghani Tali-ban, Terror-ist . . .’ (Sung) Well, the first thing you know ol’ John from ’Frisco roamed, The lawman said ‘he’s a lad misunderstood very far from home.’ Said, ‘Californee is the place he oughta be,’ So they request his trial be moved to Berkeley . . . (Voice Over): ‘Liberals that is, group-ies, peace-activists . . .’ Announcer: The Johnny Jihad Show! (Intense bluegrass banjo pickin’ music) . . . (Sung) Now its time to say goodbye to John and all his kin, Hope ya don’t think of him as a fightin’ Taliban, You’re all invited back again to this insanity, To get yourself a heapin’ helpin’ of this travesty . . . Johnny Jihad, that’s what they call ’im now Nice guy; don’t get fooled now, y’hear? (Voice Over): ‘Lawyerin’ that is, O.J.ism, media-circus . . .’ (Music) . . . end
Douglas M. Laurent
Sultan Mehmet quickly sought to reestablish Constantinople as an international and multicultural capital. He invited all those Christians who had fled to return and restore the city to its former character. The patriarch of Constantinople was granted authority to oversee all Orthodox communities within the empire. In fact, the new power of the patriarch and his administrators under the Ottoman Turks came to be resented by some outlying Orthodox communities as an infringement upon their former autonomous authority
Graham E. Fuller (A World Without Islam)
Satan in Islam “…Satan is an enemy to you…. He only invites his adherents that they may become companions of the blazing fire.”  Quran 35:6 ~ Satan was one of the Jinn.[13]  He was the best among them and elevated to a high position. ~ Allah cursed Satan when he did not bow down before Adam. ~ The Quran talks about Iblis (Satan) as a physical being created from fire. ~ He is a rebellious creature who touches every human at birth so that they will commit evil acts.
Samya Johnson (The Simple Truth: The Quran and The Bible Side-by-Side)
As a Muslim author crowed a few years afterward, Christianity was self-evidently the religion of losers: “[Islam] has blotted out their strong and well defended kingdoms, and their lofty and towering fortifications, and has turned them into refugees in hiding.” When Latin Christians invited Kublai Khan to convert, he scoffed: “How do you wish me to make myself a Christian? You see Christians in these parts are so ignorant that they do nothing and have no power.”21
Philip Jenkins (The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died)
The Messiah (Jesus) says: “God shows the greatest hatred for a scholar who loves to be remembered when being abroad, who is given much room in gatherings, who is (often) invited for dinner, and who has bags of provisions poured out for him. In truth, I say to you, Those have taken their wages in this world, and God will double their punishment on the Day of Resurrection.’ ” Strange as this may seem at - first glance, the passage may reflect Mark 12:38 f. (Luke 20:46)
Franz Rosenthal (Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Brill Classics in Islam))
God was inviting me to go on Hajj, but before that I needed to settle my debts. Muslims may only embark on their pilgrimage if they are debt-free or at least have made an arrangement for repayment.
Kristiane Backer (From MTV to Mecca: How Islam Inspired My Life)
Even in America this is a problem. In the summer of 2011, Middle East Quarterly published the results of an intensive four-year study on “sharia-adherence and the promotion of violent, jihadist literature in U.S. mosques.”14 The results? A stunning 81 percent carried jihad hate literature—with 51 percent carrying texts “rated as severely advocating violence,” and 30 percent carrying texts “rated as moderately advocating violence.”15 Especially disturbing was the discovery that “mosques with this literature were not merely repositories but incubators for the messaging of this material.”16 And fully 58 percent of the mosques “invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad.”17
Erwin W. Lutzer (The Cross in the Shadow of the Crescent: An Informed Response to Islam’s War with Christianity)
Clearly, He tells His own, Christians and Jews, to flee from the rich, powerful nation he calls the Daughter of Babylon, in order to preserve their lives from the coming destruction that the nation will have invited upon itself.
John Price (The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America)
So what can we generalize about Victorian vampires? They are already dead, yet not exactly dead, and clammy-handed. They can be magnetically repelled by crucifixes and they don’t show up in mirrors. No one is safe; vampires prey upon strangers, family, and lovers. Unlike zombies, vampires are individualists, seldom traveling in packs and never en masse. Many suffer from mortuary halitosis despite our reasonable expectation that they would no longer breathe. But our vampires herein also differ in interesting ways. Some fear sunlight; others do not. Many are bound by a supernatural edict that forbids them to enter a home without some kind of invitation, no matter how innocently mistaken. Dracula, for example, greets Jonathan Harker with this creepy exclamation that underlines another recurring theme, the betrayal of innocence (and also explains why I chose Stoker’s story “Dracula’s Guest” as the title of this anthology): “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will.” Yet other vampires seem immune to this hospitality prohibition. One common bit of folklore was that you ought never to refer to a suspected vampire by name, yet in some tales people do so without consequence. Contrary to their later presentation in movies and television, not all Victorian vampires are charming or handsome or beautiful. Some are gruesome. Some are fiends wallowing in satanic bacchanal and others merely contagious victims of fate, à la Typhoid Mary. A few, in fact, are almost sympathetic figures, like the hero of a Greek epic who suffers the anger of the gods. Curious bits of other similar folklore pop up in scattered places. Vampires in many cultures, for example, are said to be allergic to garlic. Over the centuries, this aromatic herb has become associated with sorcerers and even with the devil himself. It protected Odysseus from Circe’s spells. In Islamic folklore, garlic springs up from Satan’s first step outside the Garden of Eden and onion from his second. Garlic has become as important in vampire defense as it is in Italian cooking. If, after refilling your necklace sachet and outlining your window frames, you have some left over, you can even use garlic to guard your pets or livestock—although animals luxuriate in soullessness and thus appeal less to the undead. The vampire story as we know it was born in the early nineteenth century. As
Michael Sims (Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories)
Where is the outrage of the Muslim community? Why aren’t the imams of every mosque holding press conferences, and inviting the media to tell the American public, ‘We are Americans first. Any enemy of America is our enemy. We will work to find, stop, arrest, turn in, and condemn anyone in our community who aspires to radicalize our religion and harm our country’?
Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America)
Let’s look at your average American Muslim, someone like Siraj Wahaj, the recipient of the American Muslim community’s highest honors. Mr. Wahaj had the privilege in June of 1991 of becoming the first Muslim to deliver a daily prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives. In his prayer he recited from the Koran and appealed to almighty God to guide America’s leaders ‘and grant them righteousness and wisdom.’ The same Wahaj spoke to a Muslim audience a year later in New Jersey. This time Wahaj was singing a different tune to a different audience, and his words were far from his moderate ones in front of the U.S. House of Representatives. ‘If only Muslims were more clever politically,’ he told his New Jersey listeners, ‘they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir [leader] and give allegiance to him. . . . [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us." If Wahaj is the example of the American Muslim community and the receiver of its highest honors, who needs enemies? If this is whom our government calls a ‘moderate’ and invites to deliver a prayer before the House of Representatives, we have ignorant elected officials sitting in our capital running our country. Do you feel safer now knowing that not all Muslims are plane-flying, bomb-wearing, or car-driving terrorists? Talking about overthrowing our government and replacing it with an Islamic caliphate is terrorism of a different kind, but it is still terrorism. This is the more dangerous kind, the kind that circles you slowly, so that by the time you realize you are about to be killed, it’s already too late to do anything about it. Where is the outrage? Have we lost our sense of patriotism and loyalty to America? Do you consider this ‘moderation’? A highly respected, award-winning Muslim from the Islamic American community calling to overthrow the United States government?
Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate)
And on the Second Hijacking of Christianity: But most sinister of Brethren Kings, Was Roman Emperor Constantine, Forcing the invention of a Trinity God, By inviting the Council of the Nicene, While he kept an undivided, Dearest and nearest Roman Empire, What else a monarch, so cunning, Could have had for his ultimate desire, Then he decreed that the Trinity God, Shall be Master of the Roman Empire, But the irony came on his death bed, Seeking a priest for a final prayer. The Emperor died Unitarian instead, For it was Eusebius who baptized, Constantine as a dying Emperor, A non- Trinitarian was thus empowered, And entrusted with the high honor. Of an Emperor departing a miserable world, In widespread quandary and strife, With never ending schism and confusion, Adding serious threat to life. With hundreds of heretics burned to stakes, Others beheaded by an ax or a knife, And while limiting religious freedoms. This Trinity God is in fact polytheism, A Doctrine considered by Jews and Moslems, To be "Shirk": just a form of paganism.
Sami El-Soudani
The upsides of migration have become easy to talk about: to simply nod to them is to express values of openness, tolerance and broad-mindedness. Yet to nod to, let alone express, the downsides of immigration is to invite accusations of closed-mindedness and intolerance, xenophobia and barely disguised racism. All of which leaves the attitude of the majority of the public almost impossible to express.
Douglas Murray (The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam)
The committee invited the learned representatives of Muslims, Christians and Aryas to set forth the excellences of their respective faiths.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam)
The blasphemy law, whether Islamic or not, adopted by the majority of law markers display the respect for one's religious beliefs, within its moral, cultural and religious-routes that abandon and restrict others, whether in a majority or minority, not to perform hatred, humiliation, insult, and disregard and hurting the feelings, abusing its belief and its school of thought. As a fact, the blasphemy law executes a warning as traffic lights, to be careful, for those, who deliberately and knowingly behave to invite danger, which; indeed, mirrors an initial of self-suicide. It is also protective and educational; whereas, opposing that, means the license of freedom to abuse, insult, humiliate and create hatred, whenever, one wants and desires for its motives on the name of freedom of press and speech. In this context and concept, if one criticises the will of the majority, is a ridiculous view of point, which demonstrates and demands the minorities' authority on the law of majority that holds safeguard-prospects. As I realize that, this law determines the peace, harmony, unity, and respect in multicultural societies; however, one should not practice that in the wrong and unjust way; it will be a personal-conduct, to violate the law, which is not the definition of that law; it is a crime. By Ehsan Sehgal
Ehsan Sehgal
After hearing the solemnities of masses, and being renewed by the life-giving sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, our God, they fortified themselves with the sign of the cross. They quickly took up their weapons of war, and with joy rushed to the battle as if they were invited to a feast. Neither the broken and stony places, nor the hollows of the valleys nor the steep mountains held them back. They advanced on the enemy prepared to die or to conquer.
Raymond Ibrahim (Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West)
Upon accepting the keys to Jerusalem, as the new ruler of the city, he invited the Jews back to live, pray and be among the people of Jerusalem. After 500 years of being banished by the Romans, it was Omar and the pluralist spirit of Islam that brought Jews home to Jerusalem. Today's Muslims would do well to remember the ways of these early Muslim luminaries.
Ed Husain (The House of Islam: The Hearts and Minds of a Billion Believers)