"You should structure your time, arrange your regular devotions, and assign each function a set period of time during which it is given first priority but which it does not overstep. For if you abandon yourself to neglect and purposelessness, as the cattle do, and just do anything that may occur to you at any time it happens to occur to you, most of your time will be wasted. Your time is your life, and your life is your capital; it is the basis of your transactions [with God], and the means to attain to everlasting felicity, in the proximity of God the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, and when it passes away it never returns." ---Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī [d. 505H/1111CE]
Meknes, Morocco (Image by Phil Marion)
“The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity.” ― George Orwell
"If one notices that, for thirteen hundred years, Islam provided the dominant language of politics in the Middle East, and if one treats the twentieth century as a brief aberration, [... t]hen the reemergence of Islam looks like a return to the norm, and the rise of secular nationalism looks like the historical phenomenon in need of special explanation." --- Noah Feldman, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton)
Ibn Khaldun's Circle of Power "The world is a garden the fence of which is the dynasty (al-dawla). The dynasty is an authority (sultan) through which life is given to good conduct (al-Sunna). Good conduct is a policy (siyasa) directed by the ruler (al-malik). The ruler is an institution (nizam) supported by the soldiers. The soldiers are helpers who are maintained by money. Money is sustenance brought together by the subjects (al-ra'iyya). The subjects are servants who are protected by justice. Justice is something familiar and through it the world (al-'alam) perists. The world is a garden..."