“Although signs may be found in everything that comes to us, as though a river at our doorstep carried these messages on its surface, the Quran (like other sacred books) speaks in terms of empirical experience, since it is intended to endure through the ages and cannot bind itself to the ‘scientific’ theories of any particular time. Its images are the phenomena of nature as they appear to us in our experience — the rising and setting of the sun, the domed sky above and the mountains, which are like weights set upon the earth. Scientific observations change according to the preconceptions of the observer and the instruments at his disposal, and the speculations which blinkered human minds construct on the basis of these observations change no less swiftly. But man’s experience of the visual universe does not change. The sun ‘rises’ for me today as it ‘rose’ for the man of ten thousand years ago.”
― Islam and the Destiny of Man
― Islam and the Destiny of Man
“والإنسان مربوب بقوة أعلى منه وهو عديم الحيلة في قبضة تلك القوة. ويستوي الأمر أن يسمي المؤمن هذه القوة . . "الله" وأن يسميها الملحد "الطبيعة" أو "القوانين الطبيعية" أو "قانون القوانين" فما هذا التهرب إلا سفسطة لفظية . . المهم أنه لم يجد بدا من الاعتراف بأن هناك قوة تعلو على الإنسان وعلى الحوادث . . وأن هذه القوة تعذب وتنكل.”
― رحلتي من الشك إلى الإيمان
― رحلتي من الشك إلى الإيمان
“You cannot simply read the Quran,not if you take it seriously.You either have surrendered to it already or you fight it.
It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.
From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side.”
― Struggling to Surrender: Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam
It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.
From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side.”
― Struggling to Surrender: Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam
“اللهم اغفر لقومي فإنهم لا يعلمون”
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Basmah’s 2025 Year in Books
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