The significance of the vast Islamic scientific tradition for Muslims and especially for young Muslims today is not only that it gives them a sense of pride in their own civilization because of the prestige that science fhas in the present day world. It is furthermore a testament to the way Islam was able to cultivate various sciences extensively without becoming alienated from the Islamic world view and without creating a science whose application would destroy the world of nature and the harmony that must exist between man and the natural environment.
Seyyed Hossein NasrWithout Sufism, Islam would not have spread into two thirds of what we call the Islamic world.
Seyyed Hossein NasrAl-Hallaj has a special destiny. He came at a time when worldliness, the luxury, were inundating the Islamic world. His function was to act as kind of an antithesis to this, and he paid for it with his life, and he was very happy to do so. He smiled as he went to the executioner. That was done because it shook the conscience of the Islamic peoples of that time. But the vast majority, the vast, vast, vast majority of Sufis, they have not met the destiny of al-Hallaj. They have spoken about reaching "the Truth" and there is nothing dangerous about it.
Seyyed Hossein NasrOnly man can stop being fully man. He can ascend above all degres of universal existence and by the same token fall below the level of the basest of creatures.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr