"Persevere with patience; for assuredly the promise of God is true. Do not let those who have no certainty of faith be able to shake your firmness. --- The Holy Qur'an, 30:60

Attributed to Luqman (as)

'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

سُبْحَانَكَ لَا عِلْمَ لَنَا إِلَّا مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ       "Glory to Thee, of knowledge We have none, save what Thou Hast taught us: In truth it is Thou Who art perfect in knowledge and wisdom." --- The Holy Qur'an (2:32)

Al-Fatihah (The Opening)

"It was not Muslims that had made Islam great: it was Islam that had made the Muslims great."

"For, indeed, it was Islam that has carried the early Muslims to tremendous cultural heights by directing all their energies toward conscious thought as the only means to understanding the nature of God's creation and, thus, of His will. No demand has been made of them to believe in dogmas difficult or even impossible of intellectual comprehension; in fact, no dogma whatsoever was to be found in the Prophet's message: and, thus, the thirst after knowledge which distinguished early Muslim history had not been forced, as elsewhere in the world, to assert itself in a painful struggle against the traditional faith. On the contrary, it had stemmed exclusively from that faith. The Arabian Prophet had declared 'Striving after knowledge is a most sacred duty for every Muslim': and his followers were led to understand that only by acquiring knowledge could they fully worship the Lord. when they pondered the Prophet's saying, 'God creates no disease without creating a cure for it as well', they realized that by searching for unknown cures they would contribute a fulfilment of God's will on earth: and so medical research became invested with the holiness of a religious duty. They read the Koran verse, 'We create every living thing out of water' - and in their endeavour to penetrate to the meaning of these words, they begun to study living organisms and the laws of their development: and thus they established the science of biology... And in the same way they took to chemistry and physics and physiology, and to all other sciences in which the Muslim genius was to find its most lasting monument. In building that monument they did no more than follow the admonition of their Prophet that 'Whoever treads a path in search of knowledge, God will make easy for him the path to Paradise'; that 'The student of knowledge walks in the way of God'..." --- Leopold Weiss (Muhammad Asad), The Road to Mecca, pp190-193. Quotations from the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet reworded based on the originals.

The Similitude of the Rainstorm "[The word] sayyib signifies the 'driving rain' that falls from the sky, and is a similitude for the Qur'an, by which springs the life of hearts, just as the life of the earth - its plants and animals - springs forth after a rain. When it reaches the believers, they know that it gives life, and does not endanger it. They are not repelled by its thunder and lightning, or its warnings, [descriptions of] punishment and similitudes, by which God exhorts those who break His commandments and describes the place of those who reject His Prophet. Nor are they repelled by its rigorous commandments, such as combating enemies or patiently enduring. They are not repelled by those commandments which are hardest on their ego because they oppose its desires: 'darkness, thunder and lightning'. Anyone who knows about rainstorms and what life they bring, is not driven away by dark skies, thunder or lightning. In fact, he is drawn to them, and he rejoices in their promise of life and fertility." --- Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, The Invocation of God

وَمَا تَسْقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْلَمُهَا "...Not a leaf falls but that He knows it..." The Holy Qur'an [6:59]

"You ought not to place benefactor and malefactor on an equality; for that would be to induce the first to renounce benefactions, and to encourage the other in his wickedness." --- Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra)

Translation: "(Oh Allah!) Show us the straight way - the way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray." Ameen. Abdullah Yusuf Ali comments: "The straight Way is often the narrow Way, or the steep way, which many people shun. By the world's perversity the straight Way is sometimes stigmatized and the crooked Way praised. [...] Note that the words relating to Grace are connected actively with Allah; those relating to Wrath are impersonal. In the one case Allah's mercy encompasses us beyond our deserts. In the other case our own actions are responsible for the Wrath - the negative of Grace, Peace or Harmony." (Image text: The Holy Qur'an [1:6-7])

"And for him who fears to stand before his Lord are two gardens (i.e. in Paradise)." --- The Holy Qur'an [55:46]

Ink - حبر - Hibr Say, "If the sea were ink for [writing] the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a supplement." --- The Holy Qur'an (18:109)

Qur'anic manuscript written on leaf-shaped materials.