toobaa reblogged
اَللّٰهُمَّ اِنِّي اَسْاَلُكَ عِلْماً نَافِعاً وَّرِزْقاً طَيِّباً وَّعَمَلاً مُتَقَبِّلاً "Oh Allah, I ask for knowledge which is beneficial, sustenance which is pure (i.e. from legal means), and deeds which are acceptable (to You)."
“Mix with the noble people, you become one of them; and keep away from evil people to protect yourself from their evils.” --- Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra)
'Say: "Shall we tell you of those who lose most in respect of their deeds? Those whose efforts have been wasted in this life, while they thought that they were acquiring good by their works."' --- The Holy Qur'an, 18:103-104
[...] the lesser of two evils results in a race to the bottom, with society upholding and believing in fewer and fewer absolutes until a point in time when the lines are so blurred that right and wrong, good and bad are indistinguishable.
"Nothing hurts a good soul and the kind heart more than to live amongst people whom cannot understand it." --- Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra)
Intentions: "Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed." --- Robert Browning, The Inn Album
Source: utopic-man.deviantart.com
Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Shakespeare, 'As You Like It'
"God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly - not one." ---Jalaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273)
"The hypocrite looks for faults; the believer looks for excuses." --- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (Image: an Ottoman, 16th century gem-set box, created by Persian jewelers, thought to hold scales for jewelry making).
"It is we who change, not the conditions which define the possibilities of human living, and those who choose to look the other way when decisions are to be made and who obey the laws of men as though they were the laws of God have no real grounds for complaint. It could be said that they have lost the animals alert and watchful cunning without having achieved the vigilance of man's estate. If their worldly business occupies them to the exclusion of the 'remembrance of God', it diverts them also from paying attention to dangers which surround them on the earthly level; they are, in Muslim terms, ghafilun twice over, careless not only of their ultimate good but also of their present safety." --- Gai Eaton, King of the Castle (Cambridge, The Islamic Texts Society, 1990, pp86-87)
"What happens when you stir a cup of coffee for a long time? After you take the spoon out the coffee continues to stir on its own, right? Shaytan is that stirrer and we are his coffee. Our bad habits continue to stir even when he is away (i.e. during Ramadan)." --- I would really like to know who thought of this analogy.
"Choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil." --- Abdullah al Andalusi (Image: the playground paper game in which the holder of the origami device asks an individual a series of arbitrary questions (e.g. pick a colour, pick a number) to switch between folds. They eventually reach one of several conclusions that were written and folded into the device beforehand.)