Quotes by Sufis - Page 5

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
Idries Shah
It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?
Idries Shah
When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.
Idries Shah
Belief in God, without belief in the Prophet (SAWW), would still be unbelief.
Wasif Ali Wasif
Treat this world as I do, like a wayfarer; like a horseman who stops in the shade of a tree for a time, and then moves on.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetObjectsIt is your attachment to objects which make you blind and deaf.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetPracticeWho are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetOppressionWhen oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest.
Idries Shah
Helping othersI order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetDistributionGod it is who gives: I am only a distributor.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetWomenWomen are the twin-halves of men.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetReflectionThe Faithful are mirrors, one to the other.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetPrivacyWhoever invades people´s privacy corrupts them.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetLoveDo you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetObligation to LearnThe pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetTruthSpeaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetTHE PEOPLEIt is the people who are God's family.(Muhammad the Prophet)
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetSome behaviourI am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetThe BequestI have nothing to leave you except my family.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetFoodNobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetAccusationsAnyone reviling a brother for a sin will not himself die before committing it.
Idries Shah
Saying of the Prophet.Lies, promises, trustHe is not of mine who lies, breaks a promise or fails in his trust.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetTasksWhoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns.
Idries Shah
Teaching:One hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.Saying of the Prophet
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetMonkishnessNo monkery in Islam.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetHelping othersI order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetAngerYou ask for a piece of advice. I tell you : 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger.
Idries Shah
Never assume that anyone in this world can really understand your circumstances other than from their own perspective. People perceive things based only upon their personal frames of reference and their personal experiences. However, when aims, purposes, and aspirations are similar, people tend to work together toward a common goal.
Sidi Ahmad Zarruq
Saying of the Prophet. The Bequest: I have nothing to leave you except my family.
Idries Shah
Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.
Idries Shah
The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.
Idries Shah
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Idries Shah
People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives.
Idries Shah
… the Sufi attitude is: ‘Let the real truth, whatever it may be, be revealed to me’.
Idries Shah
Humility cannot be taught by propaganda, though slavery can. Shouting for humility is a form of arrogance. One of my most abiding recollections is of a priest at a religious occasion once roaring, in the most threatening way imaginable: t‘O our Lord God, we most humbly pray…!’Real humility is not always the same as apparent humility. Remember that fighting against self-conceit is still fighting: and that it will tend to suppress it temporarily. It does not cure anything.Remember, too, that humility itself does not bring an automatic reward: it is a means to an end. It enables a person to operate in a certain manner.
Idries Shah
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. As Prince Dara Shikoh says, in a Persian poem: Do you wish to be included with the Lords of Sight? From speech (then) pass on to experience. By saying 'Unity', you do not become a monotheist; The mouth does not become sweet from the word 'Sugar
Idries Shah
Definition of a SufiTo learn, people must give up a great deal, and this includes ritual as something from which they imagine they might learn. It is to emphasise this that Abu-Yaqub al-Susi, quoted in Kalabadhi's Taaruf, states that 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
Mediation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.
Idries Shah
Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
Idries Shah
Sufis hold that the superior experience and knowledge comes to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth,capacity,and earning of it.
Idries Shah
Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher.
Idries Shah
Laziness - The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
No practice exists in isolation.
Idries Shah
Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.
Idries Shah
Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study.
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
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
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
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
The automatism of man is overcome, in the words of Dhun'Nun, by aiming for 'being as you were, where you were, before you were'.
Idries Shah
If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth…
Idries Shah
The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
Idries Shah
it was being written in the East that 'Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality'.
Idries Shah
But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'.
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
But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school.
Idries Shah
Make mankind your dwelling place.
Idries Shah
What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything.
Idries Shah
Trying to force something is the best way to stop it from happening.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetStruggleThe holy warrior is he who struggles with himself.
Idries Shah