Sufis Quotes

I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. ~ Idries Shah

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. ~ Idries Shah

Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental. ~ Idries Shah

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed ~ Idries Shah

Nothing cheap without reason. ~ Idries Shah

Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore. ~ Idries Shah

How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body? ~ Idries Shah

God provides the food, men provide the cooks. ~ Idries Shah

I asked who are you ? He said I am the one, a clay potter.

I asked what is in the clay ? He said my commanded soul.

And he then said whatever and whoever the clay are made of I am the one who command the soul in it.

And I asked curiously who is he who has born to a virgin who had breath the soul in the clay? and made it fly!

He said shush!!! he is my secret! ~ Aiyaz Uddin

Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself. ~ Idries Shah

Action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher. ~ Idries Shah

Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face? ~ Idries Shah

Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands. ~ Idries Shah

Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin. ~ Idries Shah

Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together ~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Emotionalist:
A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine. ~ Idries Shah

The distinction, in God, between a trans-ontological and transpersonal Essence on the one hand, and an already relative auto-determination on the other--this last is Being or the Person--marks the whole difference between the strictly metaphysical or sapiential perspective on the one hand and cataphatic and ontologistic theories in so far as they are explicit on the other. Let us remember at this point that the Intellect--which is precisely what makes evident to us the absoluteness of the Self and the relativity of 'objectivations'--is only 'human' to the extent that it is accessible to us, but it is not so in itself; it is essentially *increatus et increabile* (Eckhart), although 'accidentally' created by virtue of its reverberations in the macrocosm and in microcosms; geometrically speaking, the Intellect is a ray rather than a circle, it 'emanates' from God rather than 'reflecting' Him. 'Allah is known to Himself alone' say the Sufis; this saying, while it apparently excludes man from a direct and total knowledge, in reality enunciates the essential and mysterious divinity of pure Intellect; formulae of this kind are only fully understandable in the light of the often quoted hadith: 'He who knows his soul knows his Lord. ~ Frithjof Schuon

In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.
Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word "gold", so I am rich. ~ Idries Shah

The Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised. ~ Idries Shah

What forgiveness is?
Sufi replied:
It's the fragrance that
flowers give when they
are crushed. ~ One Sufi's Saying

No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk. ~ Idries Shah

Rust through washing never became white. ~ Idries Shah

If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things. ~ Idries Shah

If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul. ~ Idries Shah

The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate. ~ Idries Shah

Truth has no form. ~ Idries Shah

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth. ~ Idries Shah

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse. ~ Idries Shah

Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings. ~ Idries Shah

There is no purpose in hammering cold iron. ~ Idries Shah

The mine is always bigger than the gem. ~ Idries Shah

The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi. ~ Idries Shah

All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language. ~ Idries Shah

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet. ~ Idries Shah

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism is the essence of all religions. ~ Idries Shah

Words have to die if humans are to live. ~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet
Anger
You ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger. ~ Idries Shah

Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them. ~ Idries Shah

No problem is too difficult to be solved by a theoretician. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. ~ Idries Shah

I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so. ~ Idries Shah

Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong. ~ Idries Shah

Q: What is a fundamental mistake of man's?
A: To think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting-room. ~ Idries Shah

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. ~ Idries Shah

SAYING OF SHEIKH ZIAUDIN:
Self-justification is worse than the original offence. ~ Idries Shah

Man has less than he suspects of: Time, Friends, Hopes, Qualities.
Proverb ~ Idries Shah

If ... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity ~ Idries Shah

The Sufis have a saying: "Praise Allah, and tie your camel to a post." This brings together both parts of practice: pray, yes, but also make sure that you do what is necessary in the world. ~ Jack Kornfield

The intellect is not sovereign: knowledge is. ~ Idries Shah

Humility has to precede instruction. ~ Idries Shah

Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life ~ Idries Shah

Muslims pursued knowledge to the edges of the earth. Al-Biruni, the central Asian polymath, is arguably the world's first anthropologist. The great linguists of Iraq and Persia laid the foundations a thousand years ago for subjects only now coming to the forefront in language studies. Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the first true scientific historian, argued hundreds of years ago that history should be based upon facts and not myths or superstitions. The great psychologists of Islam known as the Sufis wrote treatise after treatise that rival the most advanced texts today on human psychology. The great ethicists and exegetes of Islam's past left tomes that fill countless shelves in the great libraries of the world, and many more of their texts remain in manuscript form.
In the foreword of "Being Muslim. A Practical Guide" by Dr. Asad Tarsin. ~ Hamza Yusuf

A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey ~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Patience: A support for the disappointed. ~ Idries Shah

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. ~ Idries Shah

Everything man needs is in the world. ~ Idries Shah

Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn. ~ Idries Shah

Sufism, in one definition, "is" human life. ~ Idries Shah

The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoe
As he does for a polished mirror for the King. ~ Idries Shah

When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration. ~ Idries Shah

There was also more practical inquiry. How should I make a living? How do I get my relatives out of my house? Could you help me postpone payment of this loan? The dervishes had jobs in the workday world: mason, weaver, bookbinder, grocer, hatmaker, tailor, carpenter. They were craftsmen and -women, not renunciates of everyday life, but affirmative makers and ecstatics. Some people call them sufis, or mystics. I say they're on the way of the heart. ~ Coleman Barks

The doctrine that God can be incarnated in human form is found in most of the principal historic expositions of the Perennial Philosophy - in Hinduism, in Mahayana Buddhism, in Christianity and in the Mohammedanism of the Sufis, by whom the Prophet was equated with the eternal Logos. When goodness grows weak, When evil increases, I make myself a body. In every age I come back To deliver the holy, To destroy the sin of the sinner, To establish righteousness. He who knows the nature Of my task and my holy birth Is not reborn When he leaves this body; He comes to Me. Flying from fear, From lust and anger, He hides in Me, His refuge and safety. Burnt clean in the blaze of my being, In Me many find home. Bhagavad Gita ~ Aldous Huxley

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. ~ Idries Shah

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition ~ Idries Shah

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. ~ Idries Shah

They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive. ~ Idries Shah

The important place held by Jesus among the world's six hundred million Moslems ... and the agreement of both religions about the necessity for surrender to God as the means of salvation, thus makes it comparatively easy for a Moslem to address himself to Christians: the sympathy and the history are already there. ~ Idries Shah

Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl ~ Rumi

In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished. ~ Idries Shah

If I knew what two and two were – I would say Four! ~ Idries Shah

You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality. ~ Idries Shah

Form is useful, but it is secondary. ~ Idries Shah

If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude? ~ Idries Shah

It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm. ~ Idries Shah

The practice of the Sufis is too sublime to have a formal beginning, ~ Idries Shah

But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school. ~ Idries Shah

What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. ~ Idries Shah

Are you ignorant enough to expect horsemanship from blacksmiths? ~ Idries Shah

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for. ~ Idries Shah

The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis. ~ Idries Shah

Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp. ~ Idries Shah

The bowl is warmer than the soup. ~ Idries Shah

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. ~ Idries Shah

Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same. ~ Idries Shah

Most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same. ~ Idries Shah

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. ~ Idries Shah

The phenomenal is the channel to the Truth. Al mujazu qantarat al Haqiqa. ~ Idries Shah

Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied. ~ Idries Shah

The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces. ~ Idries Shah

You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person. ~ Idries Shah

A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision. ~ Idries Shah

Mujāhada, a collateral form of jihād (the so-called "holy war"), taken [by Sufis] to mean "earnest striving after the mystical life." The term is based on the Koranic text, "And they that strive earnestly in Our cause, them We surely guide upon Our paths." A Tradition makes the Prophet rank the "greater warfare" (al jihad al-akbar) above the "lesser warfare" (al jihad al-asghar, i.e., the war against infidelity), and explain the "greater warfare" as meaning "earnest striving with the carnal soul" (mujāhadat al-nafs). ~ A.J. Arberry

SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is a wind of change.
(Hariri) ~ Idries Shah

Someone says that I haven't taught him anything that he can remember. He can't understand yet that that's precisely what I am aiming at… ~ Idries Shah

The Sufis, like all mystics, are singers of a homesickness that is a kind of hope; all of us are exiles in the world, they tell us, longing to get back to the place that is our rightful home. ~ Pico Iyer

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work ~ Idries Shah

The best player of a game is the watcher - ask him. ~ Idries Shah

A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan ~ Idries Shah