Abu Al Baghdadi Quotes

A fourth group of people climbs from ignorance and pretends to possess the rational faculty. They suppose that the highest felicity is the expansion of honor and fame, the spread of reputation, a multiplicity of followers, and the influence of the command that is obeyed. Hence, you see that their only concern is eye service and cultivation of the things upon which observers cast their glance. One of them may go hungry in his house and suffer harm so that he can spend his wealth on clothes with which to adorn himself so that no one will look at him with the eye of contempt when he goes out. The types of these people are beyond count. All of them are veiled from Allah by the sheer darkness that is their own dark souls. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

O lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish? You are capable of obtaining that permanent blessing in exchange for your worshipful obedience, so do not be mean in your aspiration, vile in your intention, and base in your deeds. Look at the doves when they fly aloft, and see how their worth ascends and their value increases! You must raise all your aspiration heavenwards. You must not waste what you have gained by your worshipful obedience.

You must therefore pay close attention, O miserable wretch, and beware of being among the deprived. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

INTELLECT AND ITS NOBLE NATURE. The noble nature of knowledge has been revealed through intellect. Intellect is the source and fountainhead of knowledge and its foundation. Knowledge is like the fruit of a tree and it flows from intellect, or like the light of the sun or like the vision of the eye. Why should it not be honored when it is the cause of fortune in this world and the next? What is there to distinguish between beasts and men except intellect? Even a ferocious beast which has got more strength than man fears a man at seeing him as it knows that he may put him into snare on account of his intellect. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

The rejection of Western democracy derives from the same rejection of secularism but was further sharpened by the Saudi Arabian establishment's aversion to democracy's subversive streak and the threat it posed to the Saudi monarchy if unleashed. Saudi scholars such as Sheikh Bakr Ibn Abu Zaid consistently attacked democracy and the freedoms it flaunted as anti-Islamic. Mohammed Yusuf was heavily influenced by the writings of Saudi-based scholars such as Bakr Ibn Abu Zaid, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ibn Abd-Allah Ibn Baaz (1910-99), and Sheikh Muhammad al-Amin ash Shanqiti (1907-73). As mentioned before, all of Yusuf's opponents side-stepped the issue of democracy being un-Islamic, thereby making the issue appear incontestable or settled. ~ Kyari Mohammed

Two of the most famous Baghdadi scholars, the philosopher Al-Kindi and the mathematician Al-Khawarizmi, were certainly the most influential in transmitting Hindu numerals to the Muslim world. Both wrote books on the subject during al-Ma'mun's reign, and it was their work that was translated into Latin and transmitted to the West, thus introducing Europeans to the decimal system, which was known in the Middle Ages only as Arabic numerals. But it would be many centuries before it was widely accepted in Europe. One reason for this was sociological: decimal numbers were considered for a long time as symbols of the evil Muslim foe. ~ Jim Al-Khalili

Hazrat Abu Darda'a said: He who thinks that to go at dawn in search of knowledge is not jihad is deficient in intellect. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Knowledge without work is insanity, and work without knowledge is vanity. Know that any science which does not remove you today far from apostasy, and does not carry you to obedience, will not remove you tomorrow from the fire of hell. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Look, how they scold me for all my loving and tippling, now that the silvery edges shine forth from my brow! ~ Abu Yahya Al-Libi

The fourth duty of a teacher is to dissuade his students from evil ways with care and caution, with sympathy and not with rebuke and harshness, because in that case it destroys the veil of awe and encourages disobedience. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq's main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria. ~ Richard Engel

Just as you have taken returning to sins as a habit, then also take returning to tawba as a habit, because through tawba you expiate your past sins, and it is very possible that you may have the fortune to die while in a state of tawba. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

A Lion Overpowered

Sheikh Abu Masood bin Abi Bakr Harimi (r.a) reports that there was a very great Saint by the name of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) He used to travel on a lion wherever he went. In every city that he visited, it was his habit to ask the people of the city to send one cow for his lion's meal. Once, he went to a certain city and requested from the Saint of that city a cow for his lion. The Saint sent the cow to him and said, "If you ever go to Baghdad, your lion will receive a welcome invitation."

Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) then journeyed to Baghdad Shareef. On arriving in Baghdad, he sent one of his disciples to al-Ghawth al-A'zam (r.a) and commanded that a cow be sent to him, as a meal for his lion. The great Ghawth was already aware of his coming. He had already arranged for a cow to be kept for the lion. On the command of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) sent one of his disciples with a cow to him. As the disciple took the cow with him, a weak and old stray dog which used to sit outside the home of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) followed the disciple. The disciple presented the cow to Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) who in turn signalled the lion to commence feeding. As the lion ran towards the cow, this stray dog pounced on the lion. It caught the lion by its throat and killed the lion by tearing open its stomach. The dog then dragged the lion and threw it before al-Ghawth al-A'zam (r.a)

On seeing this, Sheikh Ahm ~ Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani

If you were to show a piece of intelligible writing to a reasonable person and say to him: 'do you know its writer?' and he said 'no', he would be speaking truly. But if he said 'yes: its writer is a man living and powerful, hearing and seeing, sound of hand and knowledgeable in the practise of writing, and if I know all this from [the sample] how can I not know him?-he too would be speaking truly. Yet the saying of the one who said 'I do not know him' is more correct and true, for in reality he has not known him. Rather he only knows that intelligible writing requires a living writer, knowing, powerful, hearing, and seeing; yet he does not know the writer himself. Similarly, every creature knows only that this ordered and precisely disposed world requires an arranging, living, knowing, and powerful maker. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Insomnia of the eyes for other than Your sake is futile,
And their weeping for other than Your loss is wasteful. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

The third duty of a teacher is that he should not withhold from his students any advice. After he finishes the outward sciences, he should teach them the inward sciences. He should tell them that the object of education is to gain nearness of God, not power or richness and that God created ambition as a means of perpetuating knowledge which is essential for these sciences. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Desire makes slaves out of kings, while patience makes kings out of slaves. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

For one who knows not God – Mighty and Glorious!- silence is imperative, and for one who knows God Most High silence is prescribed. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

There is no Dubai and Abu Dhabi; we are one. Whoever doesn't understand this should do their homework before they start talking. We will be there for each other when we need it. ~ Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Counsel: Man should yearn to reach a point where the locks to the divine mysteries are opened by his speech, and where he might facilitate by his knowledge what creatures find difficult in religious and worldly affairs, for him to gain a share in the name of opener. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Ibn al-Khatib says: Ibn Battutah has a modest share of the sciences. He journeyed to the East in the month of Rajab 725 [1325], travelled through its lands, penetrated into Iraq al-Ajam, then entered India, Sind and China, and returned through Yemen. In India, the king appointed him to the office of qadi. He came away later and returned to the Maghrib [ ... ]. Our Shaykh Abu l-Barakat Ibn al-Balfiqi told us of many strange things which Ibn Battutah had seen. Among them was that he claimed to have entered Constantinople and to have seen in its church twelve thousands bishops. He subsequently crossed the Strait to the Spanish coast [ ... ]. Thereafter the ruler of Fez summoned him and commanded him to commit his travels to writing. ~ Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Only the sufferers of injustice can realize its intensity - Iman Musa Al-Kazim ~ Abu Mohammed Al H Bin Shu'ba Al Harrani

If Abu Nidal is a terrorist, then so is George Washington. ~ Muammar Al-Gaddafi

The best of the people are the first to greet others. ~ Abu Umamah Al Bahili

The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda. ~ John Yoo

O Allah, You know me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than these people who praise me. Make me better than what they think of me, and forgive those sins of mine of which they have no knowledge, and do not hold me responsible for what they say. ~ Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq

The one whose concern is with that
which enters the belly will discover that his value is found in that
which goes out of it. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

The Prophet said in a sermon: Blessed is he whose concern for his own faults keeps him away of finding fault of others, who spends out of his lawful earnings, keeps company with theologians and the wise, and spurns the sinners and the wicked people. Blessed is he who humbles himself, makes his conduct refined, heart good and does not do harm to the people. Blessed is he who acts up to his knowledge, spends his surplus wealth, abstains from superfluous talks, follows sunnah and does not introduce innovations. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

The Way does not consist of gather more knowledge. Abu Madyan Shu'ayb Ibn al-Husayn al Ansari said: 'Worship saves you from the tyranny of formal knowledge. ~ Laurence Galian

And how can someone be described as flawless [or protector] who is not freed from his lower self ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Abu Dharr once described the people of the world, says, They breed what will they ultimately bury, they build what will eventually be destroy, they hold firm to what is emphemeral, and they forsake what is everlasting. Hence, blessed are the two cries people abominate most: Death and poverty. ~ Abu Dhar Al-Ghifari

A learned man said: The learned men are the lights of the ages. Each is a light in his own time giving light to the people of his time. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Were it conceivable that a person see only the sun and its light spreading over the horizon, it would be right for him to say: I see only the sun, for the light radiating from it is part of the whole and not extrinsic to it. So everything in existence is a light from the lights of the eternal power, and a trace from its traces. And as the sun is the source of light radiating to every illuminated thing, so in a similar fashion the meaning which words fall short of expressing-though it was necessarily expressed as 'the eternal power'-is the source of existence radiating to every existing thing. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali