Nadia Jalil

“Spread peace, feed the hungry, honor kinship ties, pray while people sleep, and you shall enter Paradise in peace.”
― Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

“Why do we Muslims have so much suffering, all over the world?” he demanded. “We are carrying the body of Islam! We don’t have submission. We have got the law, but without the hikma—the wisdom—behind it. Religion hasn’t come to give people an identity! Its purpose is not so you can say, ‘We belong to this group.’ But at this moment ninety-nine percent of Muslims treat religion as identity! But God does not like identity.”
― Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

“Jihad had very specific parameters, he said, sternly. One couldn’t harm women, children, or other noncombatants. The enemy’s crops and fields must be respected: “You can’t harm even a tree.” A jihad can be waged only by legitimate Islamic leaders operating openly, not by self-appointed guerrillas striking covertly. And jihad must not target fellow Muslims. “Those who raise their weapons against us,” said the Prophet Muhammad, “are not from us.” Today, the vast majority of the people dying in the name of jihad are Muslims.”
― Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

“Islam is not a property,” Akram once observed during a seminar. “It’s not your identity. Don’t think that if someone laughs at you, you have to explain yourself. We are more interested in defending our belonging, our identity, than in the Prophet. Don’t think about identity! Think about good character!”
― Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran