Dunya Quotes

If you take a child and you throw the child up there is a point where you see this, they go into this state of complete panic and then when they come back to your arms they are laughing. That is dunya, I guarantee you, that moment, that is your life, you came from God and you are going back to God and there is just a moment when you are in a complete state of panic but just relax, you are in good hands. Just relax. ~ Hamza Yusuf

Nothing Here is Enough"

I need a parrot,
identical days,
a quantity of needles,
and artificial ink
to make history.

I need veiled eyelids,
black lines,
and ruined puppets
to make geography.

I need a sky wider than longing,
and water that is not H2O
to make wings.

The days are no longer enough
to distinguish the missing.
I no longer see you
because I no longer dream.
I offer a tear to the rain
as if scattering you
in the Dead Sea,
and in order to sing you,
I need glass to muffle the sound. ~ Dunya Mikhail

After years of falling into the same pattern of disappointments and heartbreak, I finally began to realize something profound. I had always thought that love of dunya meant being attached to material things. And I was not attached to material things. I was attached to people. I was attached to moments. I was attached to emotions. So I thought that the love of dunya just did not apply to me. What I didn't realize was that people, moments, emotions are all a part of dunya. What I didn't realize is that all the pain I had experienced in life was due to one thing, and one thing only: love of dunya. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

Before anything can break your heart, it must first own your heart. Stop handing your heart to dunya-it'll stop breaking it. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

What's given to dunya is lost forever. What's
given to Allah is never lost. If you give what
you love, for the sake of what He loves, you'll
have what you love forever. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

Tale of Taj al-Muluk and the Princess Dunya (The Lover and the Loved). ~ Anonymous

This world cannot break you - unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys - unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while - take them back. This isn't the End. You don't have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner:
God. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

What can you do with me? My jannah is in my heart! If you take me to jail, I will make zikr of Allah. If you exile me out of my land, I will make takaffur. If you execute me, I would be a shaheed. What can you do with me? Because I am not limited to this dunya. I am living for al-akhira! ~ Ibn Taymiyyah

The Prophet said: "Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange as it began, so give glad tidings to the strangers." [Sahih Muslim] By being 'strange' to this dunya, we can live in it, without being of it. And it is through that detachment that we can empty the vessel of our heart in preparation for that which nourishes it and gives it life. By emptying our heart, we prepare it for its true nourishment: God. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

In dunya, the image is always better than the reality. In Jennah, the Reality is better than any image ever could be. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

and then I knew
that only the dreams of a stone don't become cracked
and only the heart of a stone endures. ~ Dunya Mikhail

He used to annoy me with sophistry that we all chose our destiny. Then one day I told him that that's great when fate offers you a nice set of destinies to choose from, but when you find yourself choosing between risking being raped, tortured and killed, or moving to another country to live like an alien without tongue, money or understanding, you are buggered either way. And that's not even to mention how easily he could navigate through the mine filed of his mistakes... ~ Dunya Look

O my son! The dunya (world) is a deep ocean in which many have drowned! Let your ship be taqwallah (fear of Allah), and load your ship with Iman-billah (believe in Allah), and let her sail be tawakkal (trust) on Allah! Insha'Allah you will survive then. ~ Luqman

Never lose hope. Stay close to Allah and when you mess up, go back to Him. Never, ever stop going back to Him. Repent often. Cry to Allah. And hold on tight-with your life-to His remembrance and to prayer. If you do this, you may get wet, but insha Allah never drown in this ocean of dunya. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

As much as you can, keep dunya (worldly life) in your hand
not in your heart. That means when someone insults you, keep it out of your heart so it doesn't make you bitter or defensive. When someone praises you, also keep it out of your heart, so it doesn't make you arrogant and self-deluded. When you face hardship and stress, don't absorb it in your heart, so you don't become hopeless and overwhelmed. Instead keep it in your hands and realize that everything passes. When you're given a gift by God, don't hold it in your heart. Hold it in your hand so that you don't begin to love the gift more than the giver. And so that when it is taken away you can truly respond with 'inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon': 'indeed we belong to God, and to God we return'. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

If you are looking for happiness in this world (dunya), you're in the wrong place. ~ Hamza Yusuf

How they succumbed to the same diseases,
which brought down the mighty Roman Empire.
The wrote all over al-Andalus "La-Ghaliba Illa'Llah"
{There is no vanquisher except Allah} but they
worshipped the mata'al-dunya {pleasure of the world}
and traded their souls for gold, glory, women and wine,
only to end like stray donkeys,
kicked around by the boots of Ferdinand and Isabella. ~ M. Kamal Hassan