Hamza Yusuf Quotes

America has an immense amount of power, but it doesn't use it in any benevolent way. It uses it to maintain a status quo.

Without discipline, Religion would be impossible

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong thing, you make the wrong act permanent.

Perhaps, a sin that humbles you is better than a good deed that makes you arrogant.

Language is the crowning achievement of human beings, and that is something Muslims have always known and revered. We are a literate people whose miracle is a Book from an unlettered man, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the most articulate and eloquent human being who ever lived. We honor our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in honoring language that he loved so much and used so well.

My experience on this planet is that if you treat people with respect, they tend to treat you with respect.

There's no specific punishment in the books of fiqh (Islamic laws) that relate to homosexuality per se. They apply to any illicit sexual relations, including prohibited heterosexual acts like adultery. And the punishments are strong, but they are legal fictions because they are impossible to prove. You need four witnesses to say they witnessed (sexual) penetration. In what circumstances are you going to find someone to testify to that?

When paying charity, one should smile and be humble, allowing the hand of the indigent to be above the giver's hand.

I think that's deeply rooted in Muslim consciousness, the idea of not submitting to anything other than God. "You can abuse me, but you're not going to win me over. But if you treat me with respect and dignity, I'm going to fall in love with you. I'm going to sing your praises all over the world because you're powerful and you treated me with human dignity."

In the Communist period, the revolutionaries, the leaders were almost always - Che Guevara, people like that - they were always from the middle class and the educated. And empathy is a very powerful emotion.

If you take a child and you throw the child up there is a point where you see this, they go into this state of complete panic and then when they come back to your arms they are laughing. That is dunya, I guarantee you, that moment, that is your life, you came from God and you are going back to God and there is just a moment when you are in a complete state of panic but just relax, you are in good hands. Just relax.

If Islam is not making you happy, then something is wrong with your Islam

Where is your heart? Is your heart with God? Is it with your own ego or your lust? Is it with your greed, your pride, envy, or your resentment? This is a time where you can go into yourself and ask: Where is my heart? Ramadan is a time to give the heart back to the One who possesses the hearts.