Nafisa Haji Quotes

The only law that means anything - that can have anything to do with God - is one that is alive and that strives for justice given the circumstances of the present. Otherwise, the law is merely something dead, a weapon in the hands of those with power. Against those with none.

To give voice to the questions
even in my own head
would have been to give them power, to confirm the presence of doubt, to risk eventual downfall.

The only way to rise above is to rise above. The only way to respond to wrong is with right. The only way to deal with injustice is to be just.

You won't understand this now, Saira. Later, perhaps. When you are older. When you learn that life is not only about the choices you make. That some of them will be made for you.

When someone stops saying hello, I don't see that there's any need to say good-bye.

These tears are proof that there is love in the world. Tears are only bitter when we cry selfishly for ourselves. When we deny and forget the sweet love that tears are made of. When we let sorrow turn to anger. When people cry for each other, it is a good thing. Always remember that you are a human being, connected to all other human beings. When you cry for others you are opening your heart to God, who must see what we do and weep for us, too, for the suffering we cause to one another and to ourselves.

What I saw there explained everything
the reason he had stayed away, why he had come to say good-bye. I can only describe what I saw by its effect on me. Every woman should be looked at in such a way, at least once her life. With a longing that cannot be contained
with love that goes beyond mere feeling because it transforms and-like the verse of the poem he had read
it dissolves, as an offering, a gift. I felt my face flush and waves of knowing suffused every pore, every cell of my being. I was loved. And in that love, I felt beauty
my own, unrealized until that moment, suddenly rising to consciousness in a way that made everything in me come alive to the beauty all around me. Nothing more needed to be said.

She told me that he has always been like this. That he says anger is like milk. It doesn't keep. It becomes sour, bringing sickness and death to anyone who tastes it when its time has passed. Grief, she said he likes to say, ages better than anger. It is eternal.

That there are many things that we cant understand. the past. the bad things that happened ... and we become afraid. of what might happen in the future. its okay to be afraid. but we have to keep hoping and believeing ... to keep hoping and trying our best to be good and do good. even when we're afraid

No story worth telling should ever be about blame or regret. What happened was what was meant to happen.