philosophers-from-persia

"Prayer according to Shariah is service, according to Tariqa proximity, and according to Haqiqa union with God."

"The traveller must also give up resistance to God's decree and refrain from prayers for reward in the hereafter."

"The lower soul, the Devil, and the Angels are not realities external to you. You are them. So too Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Throne are not outside you, nor are Paradise, Hell, Life, or Death. All exist withn you, as you will realize once you have accomplished the initiatic journey and become pure."

"In the state of elevation, the mystic may be able to read heavenly books in languages and characters previously unknown to him and learn the heavenly names of things and beings in including his own eternal name which is different from his wordly name."

"The heart possesses subtle organs of perception, which are progressively purifies by the performance of dhikr, together with other spiritual discipline and exercises."

"Permanent concentration upon the Divine Names in the retreat leads to mystical awareness."

"Man as a microcosm contains everything that exists in the macrocosm."

"Hope is the vision of God in His perfect Beauty."

"The Law exists to regulate mankind whilst the Reality makes us aware of the dispositions of God. The Law exists for the service of God, whilst the Reality exists for contemplation of Him. The Law exists for obeying what he had ordained whilst the Reality is concerned with witnessing and understanding the Order he has decreed."

"The Sharīāh is concerned with the observance of the outward manifestations of religion, while Haqīqat is concerned with an inward vision of Divine Power."

"Gratitude is the vision of the Gives, not of the gift-it comes from God Himself."

"According to the Sufīs Mārīfat is the attitude of the man who acknowledges God in His Names and Attibutes; who is sincere in his actions, who frees himself from the blameworthy traits of character and from weaknesses and lets his heart dwell with God."

"Hope and fear are like the two wings of a bird, when it is flying straight to its destination; of one wing fails its flights fails and if both fails, it dies."

"Love is the effacement of the lover's attributes and the establishments of the Beloved's Essence."

"It is established by evidence that there exists beyond the world a void without a terminal limit (khala' la nihayata laha), and it is established as well by evidence that God Most High has power over all contingent beings (al-mumkinat ). Therefore He the Most High has the power (qadir ) to create a thousand thousand worlds (alfa alfi 'awalim) beyond this world such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world as well as having the like of what this world has of the throne (al-arsh), the chair (al-kursiyy), the heavens (al-samawat ) and the earth (al-ard ), and the sun (al-shams) and the moon (al-qamar ). The arguments of the philosophers (dala'il al-falasifah) for establishing that the world is one are weak, flimsy arguments founded upon feeble premises."

"My heart was never deprived of science, There are little of the mysteries that I did not understand. For 72 years I thought night and day, Yet I came to know that nothing is to be known.”"

"I regret the time I have been eating instead of being in pursuit of learning - for time is precious."

"Good deeds stand tall like a green pine, evil deeds bloom like flowers; The pine is not as brilliant as the flowers, it seems. When the frost comes, the pine will still stand tall, While the flowers, withered, can be seen no more"

"To whome the Pine, with longe Experience wise, And ofte had seene suche peacockes loose theire plumes, Thus aunswere made, thow owght'st not to despise, My stocke at all, oh foole, thow much presumes. In coulde and heate, here longe hath bene my happe, Yet am I sounde and full of livelie sappe. But, when the froste and coulde shall thee assaie, Thowghe nowe alofte, thow bragge, and freshlie bloome, Yet, then the roote shall rotte and fade awaie, And shortlie, none shall knowe where was thy roome: Thy fruicte and leaves, that nowe so highe aspire, The passers by shall treade within the mire."

"A gourd wrapped itself round a lofty palm and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. ‘And how old mayest thou be?’ asked the newcomer; ‘About a hundred years,’ was the answer. ‘A hundred years and no taller? Only look, I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you can count years.’ ‘I know that well,’ replied the palm; 'every summer of my life a gourd has climbed up round me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be.’"

"Twas in Religion that he gloried by whom till the Day of Judgement The Arabs excel the Persians in glory. He who lacks religion is ignoble and mean, Though Feridun be his maternal, and Jamshid his paternal uncle."

"Have you heard? A squash vine grew beneath a towering tree. In only twenty days it grew and spread and put forth fruit. Of the tree it asked: "How old are you? How many years?" Replied the tree: "Two hundred it would be, and surely more." The squash laughed and said: "Look, in twenty days, I've done More than you; tell me, why are you so slow?" The tree responded: "O little Squash, today is not the day of reckoning between the two of us. "Tomorrow, when winds of autumn howl down on you and me, then shall it be known for sure which one of us is the most resilient!""

"[K]nowledge that is not Infallible is not certain knowledge."

"if man’s love for himself be necessary, then his love for Him through whom, first his coming-to-be, and second, his continuance in his essential being with all his inward and outward traits, his substance and his accidents, occur must also be necessary. Whoever is so besotted by his fleshy appetites as to lack this love neglects his Lord and Creator. He possesses no authentic knowledge of Him; his gaze is limited to his cravings and to things of sense."

"A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences."

"There is no denying existence itself. Something must exist and anyone who says nothing exists at all makes a mockery of sense and necessity. The proposition that there is no denying being itself, then, is a necessary premise. Now this Being which has been admitted in principle is either necessary or contingent… What this means is that a being must be self-sufficient or dependent… From here we argue: If the being the existence of which is conceded be necessary, then the existence of a necessary Being is established. If, on the other hand, its existence is contingent, every contingent being depends on a necessary Being; for the meaning of its contingency is that its existence and non-existence are equally possible. Whatever has such a characteristic cannot have its existence selected for without a determining or selecting agent. This too is necessary. So from these necessary premises the existence of a necessary Being is established."

"The man who makes his religion a means to the gaining of this world, will lose both worlds alike; whereas the man who gives up this world for the sake of religion, will get both worlds alike."

"For those endowed with insight there is in reality no object of love but God, nor does anyone but He deserve love"

"There is the world for you. Beauty, true beauty, is intangible. It is in the eye of the beholder. Something that we can lose at any moment, and the more you examine it, the more illusive it becomes. True happiness is virtue, and virtue is predicated on knowledge and righteous conduct."

"From my early youth, since I attained the age of puberty before I was twenty, until the present time when I am over fifty, I have ever recklessly launched out into the midst of these ocean depths, I have ever bravely embarked on this open sea, throwing aside all craven caution; I have poked into every dark recess, I have made an assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss, I have scrutinized the creed of every sect, I have tried to lay bare the inmost doctrines of every community. All this have I done that I might 68 distinguish between true and false, between sound tradition and heretical innovation. Whenever I meet one of the Bātiniyyah, I like to study his creed; whenever I meet one of the Zāhiriyyah, I want to know the essentials of his belief. If it is a philosopher, I try to become acquainted with the essence of his philosophy; if a scholastic theologian I busy myself in examining his theological reasoning; if a Sufi, I yearn to fathom the secret of his mysticism; if an ascetic (muta'abbīd) , I investigate the basis of his ascetic practices; if one of the Zānadiqah or Mu'ațțilah, I look beneath the surface to discover the reasons for his bold adoption of such a creed."

"How can even the lowest mind, if he reflects at all the marvels of this earth and sky, the brilliant fashioning of plants and animals, remain blind to the fact that this wonderful world with its settled order must have a maker to design, determine and direct it?"

"We attest that He is the Willer of all things that are, the ruler of all originated phenomena; there does not come into the visible or invisible world anything meager or plenteous, small or great, good or evil, or any advantage or disadvantage, belief or unbelief, knowledge or ignorance, success or failure, increase or decrease, obedience or disobedience, except by His will. What He wills is, and what He does not, will not; there is not a glance of the eye, nor a stray thought of the heart that is not subject to His will. He is the Creator, the Restorer, the Doer of whatsoever He wills. There is none that rescinds His command, none that supplements His decrees, none that dissuades a servant from disobeying Him, except by His help and mercy, and none has power to obey Him except by His will."

"The lowest degree of education is to distinguish oneself from the ignorant ordinary man. The educated man does not loathe honey even if he finds it in the surgeon's cupping-glass; he realizes that the cupping glass does not essentially alter the honey. The natural aversion from it in such a case rests on popular ignorance, arising from the fact that the cupping-glass is made only for impure blood. Men imagine that the blood is impure because it is in the cupping-glass, and are not aware that the impurity is due to a property."

"Such is al-Ghazali’s prestige that none dare criticize him. But even al-Ghazali is not above criticism—I believe that historically his negative influence prevailed and far outweighs his positive contributions. First, he led Muslims back to an unquestioning faith in the Koran that was to be accepted literally—thus all the gains made by the rationalist Mu’tazilites were squandered as Muslims were enjoined to bend their knees in total and abject submission to revelation. All the crass anthropomorphic passages of the Koran, and all the Koranic descriptions of heaven with its voluptuous houris and hell with its pathological imagery of torments were to be accepted as literally true. Worst of all, al-Ghazali reintroduced the element of fear into Islam; in his preaching, he emphasized the “wrath to come” and the punishments of hell."

"Indeed, the drunken man while in that condition does not know the definition of drunkenness nor the scientific account of it; he has not the very least scientific knowledge of it. The sober man, on the other hand, knows the definition of drunkenness and its basis, yet he is not drunk in the very least. Again the doctor, when he is himself ill, knows the definition and causes of health and the remedies which restore it, and yet is lacking in health. Similarly there is a difference between knowing the true nature and causes and conditions of the ascetic life and actually leading such a life and forsaking the world."

"Al-Ghazālī has sometimes been acclaimed in both East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad."

"If an orthodox author like al-Ghazali wrote a treatise against the Batinis, he was attacking their theological and propaedeutic doctrines but not all of their sciences"

"Yet perhaps the greatest thing about al-Ghazālī was his personality, and it may yet again be a source of inspiration."

"Do not know the truth by the men, but know the truth, and then you will know who are truthful."

"The proximity between the counterfeit and the good coin does not make the good coin counterfeit nor the counterfeit good. In the same way the proximity between truth and falsehood does not make truth falsehood nor falsehood truth."

"If you believe in the future life and, instead of preparing for it, sell it in order to buy this world, then that is folly! You do not normally sell two things for one; how can you give up an endless life for a limited number of days."

"Islam is now wrestling with Western thought as it once wrestled with Greek philosophy, and is as much in need as it was then of a 'revival of the religious sciences'. Deep study of al-Ghazālī may suggest to Muslims steps to be taken if they are to deal successfully with the contemporary situation. Christians, too, now that the world is in a cultural melting-pot, must be prepared to learn from Islam, and are unlikely to find a more sympathetic guide than al-Ghazālī."

"The first essential in chemistry is that you should perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain to the least degree of mastery. But you, O my son, do experiment's so that you may acquire knowledge. Scientists delight not in abundance of material; they rejoice only in the excellence of their experimental methods."

"The most important collection of Arabic alchemical texts was supposedly written by Jabir ibn Hayyan, but... the writings, known collectively as the Jabirian Corpus, were the work of a Muslim sect... Isma'iliya... completed by 987, but probably compiled over... several generations. ...[H]ow much, if any ...is due to [Jabir] is not known."

"Abstain rigorously from eating the flesh of cows and all beneficent animals, lest you be made to face a strict reckoning in this world and the next; for by eating the flesh of cows and other domestic animals, you involve your hand in sin, and thereby think, speak, and do what is sinful; for though you may eat but a mouthful, you involve your hand in sin, and though a camel be slain by another person in another place, it is as if you who eat its flesh had slain it with your own hand."

"The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies."

"Perhaps the greatest freethinker in the whole of Islam was al-Razi."

"Or from Muhammad ibn Zakariyyab al-Razi, who meddles in metaphysics and exceeds his competence. He should have remained confined to surgery and to urine and stool testing—indeed he exposed himself and showed his ignorance in these matters."

"I prayed to God to direct and lead me to the truth in writing this book. It grieves me to oppose and criticize the man Galen from whose sea of knowledge I have drawn much. Indeed, he is the Master and I am the disciple. Although this reverence and appreciation will and should not prevent me from doubting, as I did, what is erroneous in his theories. I imagine and feel deeply in my heart that Galen has chosen me to undertake this task, and if he were alive, he would have congratulated me on what I am doing. I say this because Galen's aim was to seek and find the truth and bring light out of darkness. I wish indeed he were alive to read what I have published."

"... In short, while I am writing the present book, I have written so far around 200 books and articles on different aspects of science, philosophy, theology, and hekmat(wisdom). ... I never entered the service of any king as a military man or a man of office, and if I ever did have a conversation with a king, it never went beyond my medical responsibility and advice. ... Those who have seen me know that I did not [go] into excess with eating, drinking or acting the wrong way. As to my interest in science, people know perfectly well and must have witnessed how I have devoted all my life to science since my youth. My patience and diligence in the pursuit of science has been such that on one special issue specifically I have written 20,000 pages (in small print), moreover I spent fifteen years of my life—night and day—writing the big collection entitled Al Hawi.It was during this time that I lost my eyesight, my hand became paralyzed, with the result that I am now deprived of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I've never given up, but kept on reading and writing with the help of others. I could make concessions with my opponents and admit some shortcomings, but I am most curious what they have to say about my scientific achievement. If they consider my approach incorrect, they could present their views and state their points clearly, so that I may study them, and if I determined their views to be right, I would admit it. However, if I disagreed, I would discuss the matter to prove my standpoint. If this is not the case, and they merely disagree with my approach and way of life, I would appreciate they only use my written knowledge and stop interfering with my behavior."