“
By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims supressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel)
“
The slave is not afflicted with a punishment greater than the hardening of the heart and being distant from Allah. For the Fire was created to melt the hardened heart. The most distant heart from Allah is the heart which is hardened. If the heart becomes hardened, the eye becomes dry.
”
”
ابن قيم الجوزية
“
وبقدر تكميل العبودية؛ تَكمُلُ محبةُ العبد لربه، وتَكمُلُ محبةُ الرب لعبده.
”
”
ابن تيمية (Al-ʻUbudiyyah: Being a True Slave of Allah)
“
I am the slave of the Master of Prophets
And my fealty to him has no beginning.
I am a slave of his slave, and of his slave’s slave,
And so forth endlessly,
For I do not cease to approach the door
Of his good pleasure among the beginners.
I proclaim among people the teaching of his high attributes,
And sing his praises among the poets.
Perhaps he shall tell me: “You are a noted friend
Of mine, a truly excellent beautifier of my tribute.”
Yes, I would sacrifice my soul for the dust of his sanctuary.
His favor should be that he accept my sacrifice.
He has triumphed who ascribes himself to him!
- Not that he needs such following,
For he is not in need of creation at all,
While they all need him without exception.
He belongs to Allah alone, Whose purified servant he is,
As his attributes and names have made manifest;
And every single favor in creation comes from Allah
To him, and from him to everything else.
”
”
يوسف النبهاني
“
And verily for everything that a slave loses there is a substitute, but the one who loses Allah(God) will never find anything to replace Him.
”
”
ابن قيم الجوزية
“
- The Azan story -
The five daily ritual prayers were regularly performed in congregation, and when the time for each prayer came the people would assemble at the site where the Mosque was being built. Everyone judged of the time by the position of the sun in the sky, or by the first signs of its light on the eastern horizon or by the dimming of its glow in the west after sunset; but opinions could differ, and the Prophet felt the need for a means of summoning the people to prayer when the right time had come. At first he thought of appointing a man to blow a horn like that of the Jews, but later he decided on a wooden clapper, ndqiis, such as the Oriental Christians used at that time, and two pieces of wood were fashioned together for that purpose. But they were never destined to be used; for one night a man of Khazraj, 'Abd Allah ibn Zayd, who had been at the Second 'Aqabah, had a dream whieh the next day he recounted to the Prophet: "There passed by me a man wearing two green garments and he carried in his hand a ndqiis, so I said unto him: "0 slave of God, wilt thou sell me that naqusi" "What wilt thou do with it?" he said. "We will summon the people to prayer with it," I answered. "Shall I not show thee a better way?" he said. "What way is that?" I asked, and he answered: "That thou shouldst say: God is most Great, Alldhu Akbar." The man in green repeated this magnification four times, then each of the following twice: I testify that there is no god but God; I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God; come unto the prayer; come unto salvation; God is most Great; and then once again there is no god but God.
The Prophet said that this was a true vision, and he told him to go to Bilal, who had an excellent voice, and teach him the words exactly as he had heard them in his sleep. The highest house in the neighbourhood of the Mosque belonged to a woman of the clan of Najjar, and Bilal would come there before every dawn and would sit on the roof waiting for the daybreak. When he saw the first faint light in the east he would stretch out his arms and say in supplication: "0 God I praise Thee, and I ask Thy Help for Quraysh, that they may accept Thy religion." Then he would stand and utter the call to prayer.
”
”
Martin Lings (Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources)
“
When a man loves a woman, he desires union, that is, the goal of union which exists in love.
In the elemental form, there is no greater union than marriage. (10) By this appetite
encompasses all parts. For that reason, complete ritual washing is prescribed after
intercourse. Purification envelops him as annihilation in the woman was complete in the
obtainment of appetite. Allah is very jealous of His slave if He believes that he finds pleasure
in other than Him. So man purifies himself by ritual washing in order to return to Him in
whom he was annihilated, since that is all there is.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
You are free from what you have despaired of, while you are slave to what you crave for.
”
”
Ibn ʻAta' Allah al-Iskandari (The Book of Aphorisms: Being a translation of Kitab al-Hikam)
“
The problem is that moderates of all faiths are committed to reinterpreting, or ignoring outright, the most dangerous and absurd parts of their scripture—and this commitment is precisely what makes them moderates. But it also requires some degree of intellectual dishonesty, because moderates can’t acknowledge that their moderation comes from outside the faith. The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside. In the twenty-first century, the moderate’s commitment to scientific rationality, human rights, gender equality, and every other modern value—values that, as you say, are potentially universal for human beings—comes from the past thousand years of human progress, much of which was accomplished in spite of religion, not because of it. So when moderates claim to find their modern, ethical commitments within scripture, it looks like an exercise in self-deception. The truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And where we do find these values expressed in our holy books, they are almost never best expressed there. Moderates seem unwilling to grapple with the fact that all scriptures contain an extraordinary amount of stupidity and barbarism that can always be rediscovered and made holy anew by fundamentalists—and there’s no principle of moderation internal to the faith that prevents this. These fundamentalist readings are, almost by definition, more complete and consistent—and, therefore, more honest. The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, “Okay, I’m just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I’ll leave my personal biases completely out of it.” Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God’s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn’t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery—you just put in a few lines like “Don’t take sex slaves!” and “When you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don’t rape any of them!” And yet God couldn’t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.
”
”
Sam Harris (Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue)
“
O Woman - Allah has made you the Queen of Piety and Modesty, Don't belittle yourself to be the slave of unlawful admiration and mortal fame & fortune.
”
”
Ayisha Tabbassum
“
He who orders his slave to do things that he knows him to be incapable of doing, then punishes him, is a fool.
”
”
Abu Isa al-Warraq
“
Allah loves the slave who is pious, independent of means and hidden from the people.
”
”
Darussalam (200 Golden Hadith)
“
One of Allah's names is al-Wahhab, which means the Bestower of Gifts. He gives us gifts for different reasons. He may give a gift solely out of love for His slave. He may see that His slave is distant from Him so He gives her a beautiful gift to bring her back to thanking Him.
”
”
Asmaa Hussein (A Temporary Gift: Reflections on Love, Loss and Healing)
“
A hadith in Sahih Muslim says: "Allah does not look at your appearance or your wealth but at your hearts and deeds. (no. 2654)"
These verses put the whole issue of dress into a different perspective: one that reminds believers not to forget that what counts for Allah is their piety. This message is a strong antidote to capitalism's materialist culture that places success firmly in the material world, and that teaches people to be a slave to their desires, and to make pleasure their end goal ("Obey Your Thirst" proclaims a soft-drink commercial). Teenagers in the West can be killed for their Nike shoes, an indication of just how far capitalism has corrupted the human soul.
”
”
Katherine Bullock
“
By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves. The
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel)
“
The Prophet related that when Allah loves the voice of His slave when he makes supplication
to Him, He delays the answer to his supplication so that the slave will repeat the supplication.
This comes from His love for the slave, not because He has turned away from him. For that
reason, the Prophet mentioned the name of the Wise, and the Wise is the one who puts
everything in its proper place, and who does not turn away from the qualities which their
realities necessitate and demand; so the Wise is the One who knows the order of things.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
African slavery did not follow one model; the institution varied according to region, people, time, and religion. There were, however, similarities among the different African systems and huge differences with American slavery. Whereas kidnapping in the early days and straight purchase of prisoners of war were the methods by which the Americans and Europeans acquired their African slaves, wars were the principal sources of captives in West Africa. The Africans’ viewpoint on the matter is of particular interest. When Frenchman Gaspard Mollien told a group of Senegalese in 1818 that the European battlefields were covered “with thousands of dead, they could not conceive that the Europeans could massacre men since it would be more profitable and humane to sell them than to kill them.
”
”
Sylviane A. Diouf (Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas)
“
Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God’s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn’t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery—you just put in a few lines like “Don’t take sex slaves!” and “When you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don’t rape any of them!” And yet God couldn’t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.
”
”
Sam Harris (Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue)
“
In sixteenth-century Geneva, Protestant theologian John Calvin spun a complex theological web around two simple threads: the absolute sovereignty of God and the total depravity of human beings. Like Calvinists, Muslims go to great lengths not to confuse Creator and created. Glorifying in the servility of human beings before Allah, they refer to themselves in many cases as "slaves" of the Almighty. But unlike Calvin, Muslims do not believe in original sin. Every human being is born with an inclination toward both God and the good. So sin is not the problem Islam addresses. Neither is there any need for salvation from sin. In Islam, the problem is self-sufficiency, the hubris of acting as if you can get along without God, who alone is self-sufficient. "The idol of yourself," writes the Sufi mystic Rumi, "is the mother of (all) idols." Replace this idol with submission to Allah, and what you have is the goal of Islam: a "soul at peace" (89:27) in this life and the next: Paradise.
”
”
Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter)
“
3.335: Narrated Ata bin Yasar: I met `Abdullah bin `Amr bin Al-`As and asked him, "Tell me about the description of Allah's Apostle which is mentioned in Torah (i.e. Old Testament.") He replied, 'Yes. By Allah, he is described in Torah with some of the qualities attributed to him in the Qur'an as follows: "O Prophet ! We have sent you as a witness (for Allah's True religion) And a giver of glad tidings (to the faithful believers), And a warner (to the unbelievers) And guardian of the illiterates. You are My slave and My messenger (i.e. Apostle). I have named you "Al-Mutawakkil" (who depends upon Allah). You are neither discourteous, harsh Nor a noisemaker in the markets And you do not do evil to those Who do evil to you, but you deal With them with forgiveness and kindness. Allah will not let him (the Prophet) Die till he makes straight the crooked people by making them say: "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah," With which will be opened blind eyes And deaf ears and enveloped hearts.
”
”
محمد بن إسماعيل البخاري (Complete Sahih Bukhari.English Translation Complete 9 Volumes)
“
The history of slavery provides the spine of this novel. Some texts that offered “deep background” were Boubacar Barry’s Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, which excavates eighteenth-century slave trading history in Wolof-speaking areas of West Africa, and Walter Rucker’s Gold Coast Diasporas: Identity, Culture, and Power, about Asante peoples of West Africa, those who would come to be called “Coromantee.” Sylviane Diouf’s Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas is a must-read for anyone interested in Muslim history on the American side of the Atlantic. And Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History gives background information about the brutal transatlantic slave trade. In addition, the digitized Georgia Archives provided information about eighteenth-century slave and Native American codes, as well as Land Lottery records. Henry Louis Gates’s edited The Classic Slave Narratives, which include Jacobs’s as well as Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, continue to be so important to me. Ailey’s family lives
”
”
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois)
“
The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, “Okay, I’m just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I’ll leave my personal biases completely out of it.” Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God’s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn’t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery—you just put in a few lines like “Don’t take sex slaves!” and “When you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don’t rape any of them!” And yet God couldn’t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.
”
”
Sam Harris
“
The mujahid, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, the descendant from the family of the Prophet, the slave of Allah.
”
”
Jay Sekulow (Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore)
“
If the Prophets, peace be upon him, thanked Allah for what He had bestowed on them and
given to them, that was not from the command of Allah. They undertook that freely from
themselves, as the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stood
thanking Allah until his feet were swollen, when Allah had forgiven Him his wrong actions,
past and present. When people commented what he did, he said, "Am I not a thankful slave?"
Allah said that Nuh was a thankful slave. (4) So the thankful among the slaves are few.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
Women are inherently crooked? Certainly some Muslim clerics think so—or at least, they do not believe in legal equality for women. Bangladeshi Islamic cleric Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini read the same Koran that Tony Blair found so progressive and yet complained about attempts in his native country to establish equal property rights for women. The problem? That would be “directly against Islam and the holy Koran.”7 And where do Muslims get such ideas? They stem from the overall inferior status of women promulgated in the Koran, which specifically refutes the notion that women have as much basic human dignity as men. To the contrary, Allah says men are superior. When giving regulations for divorce, Allah stipulates that women “have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness.” Similar, but not identical, for “men are a degree above them” (2:228). Far from mandating equality, the Koran portrays women as essentially possessions of men. The Koran likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: “Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will” (2:223). And in a tradition Muhammad details the qualities of a good wife, including that “she obeys when instructed” and “the husband is pleased to look at her.”8 The Koran decrees women’s subordination to men in numerous other verses: • It declares that a woman’s legal testimony is worth half that of a man: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (2:282). • It allows men to marry up to four wives, and also to have sex with slave girls: “If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice” (4:3). • It rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children’s (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” (4:11). • It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).
”
”
Robert Spencer (The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran)
“
when you have firm faith in Allah the Almighty and become devoted slave of Allah you don't need to have any other master.
”
”
Shakil Kamboh
“
~ The relationship of the Muslim to Allah is that of a slave to an owner. ~ The approval of Allah is based entirely on the actions of the Muslim. ~ Allah’s love is conditional and dependent on the Muslim’s performance. ~ Allah does not love the whole world.
”
”
Samya Johnson (The Simple Truth: The Quran and The Bible Side-by-Side)
“
Do not be a slave to others when Allah has created you free.
”
”
Nadeem Ali
“
From the perfection of Allah's ihsan is that He allows His slave to taste the bitterness of the break before the sweetness of the mend. He does not break His believing slave, except to mend him. And He does not withhold from him, except to give him. And He does not test him, except to cure him.
”
”
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah
“
Allaah has not bestowed any blessing upon His slaves then taken it away and replaced it with patience, but what He has compensated them with is better than what He has taken away.
”
”
Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azeez
“
True freedom is doing what Allah wants which is the defintion of freedom in Islam. The 'Abdullah is the only real hur because he is a servant and a slave to Allah and not to creation.
The one who is a slave to himself is not free and will never be free until he is freed of himself.
And this is why in arabic language the word for freed slave is also the word for master: "Maula"; like we call Allah "Maulana". So the freed slave is the one who is the master of himself.
”
”
Hamza Yusuf
“
Adam was in
possession of Divine Names which the angels did not have, so that their praise and
glorification of Him was not the same as Adam's praise and glorification of Him. Allah
describes this to us so that we may ponder it and learn adab with Allah, and so that we
will not lay claim to what we have not realised or possessed by pinning down. How can we
allege something which is beyond us and of which we have no knowledge? We will only be
exposed. This divine instruction is part of Allah's discipline of those of His slaves who are
well-mannered, trusting and khalifs.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
When he brought the dead to life, it was said that it was him and not him. The onlookers fell
into bewilderment (hayra) just as the man of intellect becomes bewildered in his logical
reflection when he sees an individual human being bringing the dead to life, as that is one of
the divine qualities - bringing to life with speech, not mere bringing with animation. (12) The
beholder is bewildered because he sees the form of a man who possesses a divine effect. That
led some of them to speak of that as "incarnation" and say that 'Isa was Allah since it was by
Him that 'Isa brought the dead to life. Thus they are charged with disbelief (kufr) which is the
veil because they veil Allah, who brings the dead to life, by the human form of 'Isa. Allah
said, "They are unbelievers who say, 'Allah is the Messiah, the son of Maryam.'" (13) They
fell into both error and disbelief at the end of all they said, not because they say that he is
Allah nor by calling him the son of Maryam. But they made the attribution that Allah, insofar
as He brought the dead to life, was contained in the human form of the nasut which is called
the son of Maryam. There is no doubt that 'Isa was the son of Maryam. The hearer imagines
that they have attributed divinity to the form, and so they make divinity the same as the form.
That is not what they do. Rather, they make divine He-ness the subject in the human form which is the son of Maryam. They should differentiate between the form of 'Isa and the
divine principle because they have made the form the same as the principle. Jibril was in the
form of man who did not breathe and then he breathed. One differentiates between the form
and the breath, and the breath from the form. The form existed without the breath - thus the
breath is not part of its essential definition. For that reason, differences occurred among the
people of different [Christian] parties regarding 'Isa and what he was. Whoever looks at him
in respect to his mortal human form, says that he is the son of Maryam. Whoever looks at him
in respect to his mortal representational form relates him to Jibril. Whoever looks at him in
respect to what was manifested from him of bringing the dead to life, relates him to Allah by
the quality of the spirit, and says that he is the Spirit of Allah, (14) that is, by Him life was
manifested in whomever received his breath. Sometimes Allah is imagined to be the passive
principle in 'Isa, and sometimes the angel is imagined in him, and sometimes mortal
humanity is imagined in him. So the conception of everyone is based on what predominates
that person. 'Isa is the Word of Allah, (15) the Spirit of Allah, (16) and the slave of Allah.
(17) That is something which no one else has in the sensory form. Indeed, each person is
attached to his father of form, not to the One who breathed his spirit into the human form.
When Allah fashioned the human body as He said, "When I have shaped him," (15:29;38:72)
then He breathed into Him, that was from His spirit. Thus in its being and source, the spirit is
ascribed to Allah. That is not the case with 'Isa. The shaping of his body and mortal form is
implied in the breath of the spirit. Others, as we mentioned, are not like that.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
Chapter 50: Invocation in sitting in the Tashah-hud. 368. Narrated Ibn Mas`ud: Allah's Messenger (s) taught me the Tashah-hud as he taught me a Sura from the Quran, while my hand was between his hands. (Tashah-hud was), التَّحِيَّاتُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَوَاتُ وَالطَّيِّبَاتُ ﴿﴾السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ ﴿﴾ السَّلامُ عَلَيْنَا وَعَلَى عِبَادِ اللَّهِ الصَّالِحِينَ ﴿﴾ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لا إِلَهَ إِلا اللَّهُ ﴿﴾ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ “Attahiyyaatu Lillahi Was Salawatu Wattayyibatu Assalamu Alaika Ayyuhannabi 'yu 'Warahmatullahi Wabarka'tuhu Assalamu Alaina Wa'ala'Ibadillahis Saa'liheen, Ash'had'u'un La ilahaillallahu Wa Ash'hadu Anna Muhammadun Abd'uhu Wa Rasooluh” “All the best compliments and the prayers and the good things are for Allah. Peace and Allah's Mercy and Blessings be on you, O Prophet! Peace be on us and on the pious slaves of Allah, I testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and I also testify that Muhammad is Allah's slave and His Apostle. (We used to recite this in the prayer) during the lifetime of the Prophet (s), but when he had died, we used to say, "Peace be on the Prophet." (6265)
”
”
Imam Al Bukhari (Sahih al-Bukhari: Complete 9 Volumes)
“
He is Ar-Rauf, Compassionate towards His slaves, who consoles the broken-hearted.
How then can I allow my doubts to get the better of me? And so, I will continue to pray, I will pray till my hardships end, or I end, and either way, I’ll be victorious. My living and my dying are for Allah, fighting in His way against the battalions that shake my faith.
”
”
Sarah Mehmood (The White Pigeon)
“
Prophet Muhammad PBUH said, that Allah SWT said: "When Allah loves a slave, He calls Gabriel and says: 'I love so-and-so; so love him.' And then Gabriel loves him. Then Gabriel announces in the heavens saying: 'Allah loves so-and-so; so love him'; then the inhabitants of the heavens (the angels) also love him; and then people on earth love him." [Narrated by Imam Al-Bukhari]
”
”
Mizi Wahid (You are Loved)
“
177. Righteousness does not consist of turning your faces towards the East and the West. But righteous is he who believes in Allah, and the Last Day, and the angels, and the Scripture, and the prophets. Who gives money, though dear, to near relatives, and orphans, and the needy, and the homeless, and the beggars, and for the freeing of slaves; those who perform the prayers, and pay the obligatory charity, and fulfill their promise when they promise, and patiently persevere in the face of persecution, hardship, and in the time of conflict. These are the sincere; these are the pious.
”
”
Talal Itani (Quran: English Translation. Clear, Pure, Easy to Read, in Modern English.)
“
Remembrance after Fajr is more beloved than freeing four slaves and remembrance after ‘Asr is better than freeing eight slaves.” [Ahmad #22185-22254]
”
”
ابن رجب الحنبلي (The Journey to Allah)
“
The adoption of Islamic law had a decisive effect on slavery in West Africa, for it significantly reduced the causes for enslavement while at the same time encouraging manumission. Islam neither condemned nor forbade slavery but stated that enslavement was lawful under only two conditions: if the slave was born of slave parents or if he or she had been a “pagan” prisoner of war. Captives could legally be made slaves if the prisoner was a kafir (pagan) who had first refused to convert and then declined to accept the protection of the Muslims. In theory, a freeborn Muslim could never become a slave; therefore, judicial process led to death for those who had committed a capital crime—since prisons did not exist—while the perpetrators of smaller offenses, including debtors, saw their property seized or received corporal punishment.
”
”
Sylviane A. Diouf (Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas)
“
Similarly, the existence of Allah has multiplicity and the many Names. It is this or that
according to what appears from it of the universe which demands the realities of the Divine
Names by its development. They are doubled by it and stand in opposition to the unity of
multiplicity. It is one by source in respect to its essence, as the primal substance (hayûla) is a
single source in respect to its essence, while it has many forms which it supports by its
essence. It is the same with Allah through the forms of tajalli which are manifested from
Him. So the locii of the tajalli are the forms of the universe, in spite of the intelligible unity
(ahadiyya). Look at the excellence of this divine instruction which Allah gives by granting its
recognition to whoever He wishes among His slaves.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
And verily for everything that a slave loses there is a substitute, but the one who loses Allah will never find anything to replace Him.
”
”
ابن قيم الجوزية
“
Islam is a similar story, a blind-faith based religion which alleviates some of the mental pressures of the poor and powerless. Two hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire, there lived a merchant from a desert town called Mecca named Mohammad who was an export-trader. At the age of 39 Mohammad began to have “visions”; while sitting in a cave one day, the angel Gabriel appeared in a blinding white light and made Mohammad read a message from “Allah”, or simply, “God”. In Howard Bloom’s fantastic “The Lucifer Principle”, it is suggested than perhaps the sources of Mohammad’s visions were a result of epileptic fits. No matter what the cause, the 39-year-old believed that he was chosen as a prophet and had to spread his message. He began preaching on street corners about his encounter with Gabriel and many believed him to have lost his mind. Mohammad was ridiculed and mocked and only a few believed him. Slaves began to leave their masters and follow Mohammad, which caused havoc in the local economy and the ruling elite. Mohammad soon left Mecca and traveled to Medina to gain followers there. After some time, Mohammad had gained enough followers to gain power and rule over the city politics of Medina. Mohammad consolidated his power by assassinating his rivals in Medina. Soon, he launched raids against traveling Meccan caravans which disrupted trade. When the Meccan militia attacked in response, the zealots of the Sword of Islam defeated them, adding to their prestige. Soon desert tribes joined and converted to Islam. Mohammad soon led his army to the Jewish town of Khaibar and conquered it, killing 900 people and enslaving the women and children. Mohammad’s ten thousand zealots marched with him to Mecca and by force and fear quickly converted the inhabitants. After this victory, Mohammad’s forces went forth to conquer and convert Persia, Afghanistan, various African lands and much more. This is but another example of how force and religion may establish power by necessity of those who have little in life.
”
”
Michael W. Ford (Apotheosis: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Luciferianism & the Left-Hand Path)
“
Had Allah lifted the veil for his slave and shown him how He handles his affairs for him, and how Allah is keener for the benefit of the slave than his own self, his heart would have melted out of love for Allah and would have torn to pieces out of thankfulness to Allah. Therefore if the pains of this world tire you, do not grieve. For it maybe that Allah yearns to hear your voice by way of du'a. So pour out your desires in prostration and forget about it and know that verily Allah does not forget.
”
”
Ibn Al Qayyim (Unknown Book 8458185)