Bilal Tanweer Quotes

Ever seen a bullet-smashed windscreen?
The hole at the center becomes an eye. You see less through it but you gain focus, sharpness. That's how it is -- our wounds become our eyes. Seeing outside becomes seeing inside.
Listen. ~ Bilal Tanweer

My dear, you are not one person. You have many people in you, and each one can ask only some kinds of questions. ~ Bilal Tanweer

Things taste sweeter when you have some hunger left to linger. You feel it hunting your head for buried things; digging into the fractures of your breath warm and greedy. ~ Bilal Tanweer

people who ran away are friends! ~ Bilal Tanweer

Now, standing here, it is clear as day: more than anything else, you want to find words for what you feel and think and everything that is dark. And then this terrifying thought hits you: Yes, your father wrote poetry to find a language for his wounds. Yes, you in your own way have become your father. ~ Bilal Tanweer

Living in this city, you developed a certain relationship with violence and news of violence: you expected it, dreaded it, and then when it happened, you worked hard to look away from it, because there was nothing you could do about it - not even grieve, because you knew that it would happen again and maybe in a way that was worse than before. Grieving is possible only when you know you have come to an end, when there is nothing more to follow. This city was full of bottled-up grief. ~ Bilal Tanweer

The sea, you see, feels good for only a few days, but then it starts suffocating you. You first escape to the sea to escape yourself, but after a while that's all you find there. City is better that way. There are too many lanes and alleys. You never run into yourself there. ~ Bilal Tanweer

What appears strange and complex becomes stranger and more complicated once you begin to investigate it. That's the true nature of the world. ~ Bilal Tanweer

Reasons were invented, and stories were reasons that allowed us to connect ourselves to the world, to compose ourselves in ways that others could read. Fragments were true but we needed stories greater than fragments. We needed stories in order to imagine the mad world we lived in. ~ Bilal Tanweer

Even when it gets messy, get out as cleanly as possible! ~ Bilal Tanweer

a city is all about how you look at it ~ Bilal Tanweer

Once you tell somebody a story, you are all in the same world and you can all speak to each other about the same things and understand the same things. ~ Bilal Tanweer

for the first time I am confronted with the fact that places and people are like things: both made of memories and meaningful to us in the same way: we construct ourselves in our conversations with them. ~ Bilal Tanweer

Lance: "Who are you?"
the kid:
"I am Amanullah"
"I am Najeeb"
"I am Masoud"
"i am an Afghan ~ Bilal Taibzada

I'm not sure exactly where I stand in this generational continuum. I'm rebellious, but not against tradition
I'm very respectful of tradition. I'm rebellious against stagnant tradition, and authoritarian control used to keep that tradition in place. If push comes to shove I will always place myself on the side of the new generation, because if a culture can't keep renewing itself, it will eventually die. ~ Wafaa Bilal

The boar held a VCR reote control and cackled maliciously as he watched a video of U.S. politicians grinning with their one-time budy Saddam
Dick Cheney, Gulf War-era Secretary of State James Baker, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, to the tune of "Taking Care of Business." And then the viewers saw themselves in a mirror emblazoned with the words "You are a witness. ~ Wafaa Bilal

There was always something yet unseen. The ground itself was daily renewed, kicked up and muddled by passing travelers, such that it was impossible to repeat the same journey twice. Alif thought of all the times he had left the duplex in Baqara District bent on some mundane errand: the courtyard gate closing behind him with a rattle, rattling again when he returned the same way; to him, ordinary and frustrating, to the world, a process full of tiny variations, all existing, as Sheikh Bilal had said, simultaneously and without contradiction. He had been given eternity in modest increments, and had thought nothing of it. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Scared? Pray.
Over thinking? Pray.
Losing hope? Pray.
Worried? Pray.
Struggling? Pray.

Pray and trust in Allah! ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

The Most Painful Goodbyes Are The Ones That Are Never Said And Never Explained ... ~ Bilal Nasir Khan

Technological advancement and modernisation have not brought inner peace and tranquillity. Rather, in spite of the creature comforts that modernisation has brought us, we are further away from inner peace than our ancestors were. Inner peace is for the most part of our lives very elusive; we never seem to get our hands on it... ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

Busy yourself with what is pleasing to Allah, or Satan will busy you with what displeases Him. ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

The technological man is limited as his tools. The man without technologies is limitless. ~ Bilal Hussain

Promise me Deewan bhai, you will not let Safeena become another Bilal. ~ Sanchit Gupta

For the Bible and the Qur'aan to be the divine word of God, they must be free from inexplicable contradictions, and there should be no doubt about their content nor about their authors... ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

Makana stared up at the stars and marvelled at how clear they were out here, so far from human habitation. It was remarkable, just how many there were. They felt comforting, despite his situation. They took him back to his life with Muna, the happiest time he could remember, when the world had been simple. Sitting out in the yard in the evenings, watching the sky revolve slowly around them. It seemed like another world. ~ Parker Bilal

I don't consider this younger generation to be lost, quite the opposite, they must continue. It is up to them. The old political system no longer functions. ~ Enki Bilal

My honors thesis project was my first interactive exhibit, in which two facing chairs were activated by a motion sensor when the viewer walked by. One was a cofortable armchair of plush red velvet, with a dildo sticking out of a hole in the seat. When activated, the dildo moved up and down and a strobe light pulsed. The facing chair was hard and uncomfortable, with spikes protruding from the seat, and when the viewer walked by it a dog would bark. The juxtaposition of the two chairs was meant to represent how forces of repression censor the desire for liberation.

In that same exhibition, I showed a handmade box in the shape of a cross, decorated with a beautiful painting of the Holy Trinity. The viewer was encouraged to open the box, where they would find a dildo wrapped in the American flag and nailed to a cross-- this was meant to symbolize the hypocrisy and repression that is hidden under the attractive facade of organized religion. The dildo was surrounded by pages from the Bible, which were themselves surrounded by images of the sickness and starvation caused by the embargo in Iraq, a comment on the effects of imposing one culture and religion on another. ~ Wafaa Bilal

The believer is not a slave to fashion.

~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

if do amistake it is not a mistake but it is amistake to repeat mistake ~ Bilal

Allah has tailor made the test for each and every one of us and none of us will be given something which we can't bear. I am given something that I can bear and you are given something that YOU can bear. The tests won't be the same for you and me. This is why suicide is the a great wrong because by suicide you're basically declaring, 'Oh Allah this is too much, I can't take it anymore! ~ Bilal Philips

We're so busy broadcasting our latest cultural disdain that we scantly notice anything we enjoy. 'Oh man, this Rebecca Black kid is terrible! Let's laugh at her!' has become more culturally relevant than, 'I really love this new Bilal record.' ~ Patrick Stump

The righteous believers either speak about good things or they keep silent. ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

I have no sense of what War is like; It may be like disaster Hollywood movies. But i wish india and Pakistan fight a War and devour all ; instead of decapitating one-by-one ~ Bilal Bashir Magry

In any culture the dispossessed and powerless willl turn to religion and legend, because what else do they have to believe in? They need these stories of heroism and superhuman saviors to give them hope. ~ Wafaa Bilal

The beautiful thing about calling out to your Lord is that you don't always have to put your feelings into words ~ Bilal Philips

Taqwaa (piety) is the driving force behind living faith. Without it, faith is only a meaningless jumble of memorized words and phrases, and 'righteous' deeds only shells of pretence and hypocrisy. ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

Anyone who has something will give to those who ~ Parker Bilal

Removing misunderstandings from the mind is also a part of intellectual development! ~ Habib Bilal

There are two special moments in a day I love the most
The moment Before I wake up, the feeling of existment and happinesse like a little kid, the rush of adrenaline into my body the beating of my heart so fast, and the whisper of my heart feeling your arms upon my chest whispers " is she real or are we still dreaming"

The end of the day
I crave you like an addict to drugs
Missing your beautiful face,
Missing the way you smile,
Missing the way you look at me
Missing hearing your voice
Missing the way you smell
Missing your soft skin
Missing how your body shake when my lips thouch your skin ~ Bilal

Drugs is a government game, Bilal. A way to rob us of our best black men, our army. Everyone who plays the game loses. Then they get you right back where we started, in slavery! Then they get to say "This time you did it to yourself." I won't play that game. ~ Sister Souljah

You're not a failure, Uncle," he said, the words awkward and insufficient in his mouth. "It's only that we don't feel safe. A game has a reset button. You have infinite chances for success. Real life is awfully permanent compared to that, and a lot of religious people make it seem even more permanent - one step the wrong way, one sin too many, and it's the fiery furnace for you. Beware. And then at the same time, you ask us to love the God who has this terrible sword hanging over our necks. It's very confusing." "Ah," said Sheikh Bilal, looking melancholy, "but that's the point. What is more terrifying than love? How can one not be overwhelmed by the majesty of a creator who gives and destroys life in equal measure, with breathtaking swiftness? You look at all the swelling rose hips in the garden that will wither and die without ever germinating and it seems a miracle that you are alive at all. What would one not do to acknowledge that miracle in some way? ~ G. Willow Wilson

More than 100,000 soldiers will soon return home with the post-traumatic stress I know so well, not to mention the mysterious effects of deplted uranium ... and the ripples of resentment and animosity this war has sent throughout the world will inevitably wash up on U.S. shores.
As I write this, mainstream political dialogue is still focused on the crazy idea that we can somehow still "win" the war in Iraq. For someone like me, a citizen of both countries, what outcome would constitute a victory? When you're talking about war, about so many thousands dead, so many families shattered on both sides, how can anyone claim victory? ~ Wafaa Bilal

Being an altruist I have an urge in mylife to help poor's but im not Bill Gates ~ Bilal Bashir Magry

One day you'll thank Allah for the door that closed. You'll be grateful that it didn't work out. Allah's plans are better than our wishes. ~ Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

I have a very connected history with Bilal. I heard his demo years ago. I heard all of the magic instantly. He's a master at interpretation of song. ~ Q-Tip

Sheikh Bilal had taken
him aside the day before the wedding and spoken to him of marriage
and his wife's rights in the Law, stressing to him that there was nothing
for a Muslim to feel shy about in marrying a woman who was not a
virgin and that a Muslim woman's previous marriage ought not to be a
weak point that her new husband could exploit against her. He said
sarcastically, The secularists accuse us of puritanism and rigidity,
even while they suffer from innumerable neuroses. You'll find that if
one of them marries a woman who was previously married, the
thought of her first husband will haunt him and he may treat her
badly, as though punishing her for her legitimate marriage. Islam has
no such complexes. ~ Alaa Al Aswany

Call me nerd today, call me boss tomorrow. ~ Bilal Chaudhry

Life ... Isn't a roller coaster, it isn't unexpected or surprising. It's not a free ticket to go along for the ride ... Simply put, Life is life. Its who you are, what you do that defines you and your life, so choose ... but choose wisely, because life is here to stay ... ~ Bilal Hussain