Tag: quote

  • Imam Al-Ghazzali on Feeble-Mindedness

    …the parable of the feeble-minded person who thinks that the light of the sun is the result of its rising, is like the parable of an ant which as it happened upon the surface of a sheet of paper, was endowed with reason and thereupon watched the movement in the process of writing, only to think that it was the work of the pen, but would not go beyond that to see the fingers, and behind the fingers the hand, and behind the hand the will which moves it, and behind the will a deliberate and an able scribe, and behind all, the Creator of the hand, and the ability, and the will. Most people do not look beyond the nearby and earthly causes and never arrive at the Cause of all causes.

    Imam Al-Ghazzali (The Book of Knowledge)

  • In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to expect it.

    ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Fanny McCullough, Dec. 23, 1862

  • It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words.

    Sahih Bukhari

  • It takes a tortured soul to write about beauty because a beautiful soul has no need for such expression

    Zaid Ismail

  • I’ve been waking up the last few days with this part of this specific ayat in my head. The full text of the ayat reads:

    [Jacob] said, “Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. Perhaps Allah will bring them to me all together. Indeed it is He who is the Knowing, the Wise.” ` Sahih International

    Photo: (c) Cynically Jaded

    N3 Highway heading towards Johannesburg, South Africa, December 2010

  • Ignoring a fool is not indifference, it’s wisdom.

    Zaid Ismail

  • Of all the things we take for granted in life, our power of choice is probably the most abused gift we’ll ever receive.

    Zaid Ismail

  • There was never an absence of criticism, or name calling. I was always the butt end of taunts and mockery and isolated, not by choice. If it wasn’t my slim physique that was being ridiculed, it was my nose for being too big, or my hair for being styled strangely, or my teeth for being crooked. I maintained amicable relations with most in my family, but my elder brother despised me for as long as I can remember. So trying to find something to be positive about in life was never an easy task. If I asked for a second helping of food I would be verbally abused. If I spent time with the very few friends I had from school, I would be ostracised for not having time for the family, and therefore deliberately excluded from family activities when I got home.

    I recall times when I walked through the streets at night until very late, listening to the laughter and noises from the homes in the neighbourhood of families and friends doing what families and friends do. It was alien to me. The reason I was walking the streets at that time of the night when I was in my very early teens, if that old even, was because for reasons that I can’t recall, I did not accompany my family to a visit to some or other extended family. As a result I had to loiter outside until they returned because I was locked out of the house. One night I was literally kicked out of the house when I was barely 6 or 7 years old. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and sent me flying out the front door to go searching for a jacket that he had hidden away to teach me a lesson for forgetting to take it in the house when I was done playing. It worked. I never forgot that lesson.

    Excerpt from the book I never wrote

    Ramblings of a Madman