The quest for truth must be carried out by each person individually. It is like breathing, something which no one else can do for us.
Seyyed Hossein NasrMuhammad was, first of all, a Prophet of course, a beloved and lover of God, a father, an army commander, a judge, a ruler of a community, the King of Medina and later of Arabia, and all of these were combined in him and his destiny, the reason God brought him on earth, was to show how each of the functions which human beings have in life have the perfect form in the prophet.
Seyyed Hossein NasrThe Prophet, peace be on him, presents all the possibilities of the human state in perfection. Now, a part of that of course is love of God.
Seyyed Hossein NasrIf God did not love us, we could not love him. And Sufis are those who have realized this love.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr300 years after the rise of Islam there were Zoroastrians in Iran. The Muslim armies never forced people to accept Islam. It was only within Arabia that God ordered the idolaters to have a choice of either embracing Islam or fight against Muslims, because He wanted to remove this terrible idolatry that exited there. But outside Arabia where Islam met Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Hindus, they were given a choice by and large. That's why many Christians and Jewish communities survived in the Muslim world, but gradually many of them embraced Islam for different reasons.
Seyyed Hossein NasrThe traditional doctrine of man and not the measurement of skulls and footprints is the key for the understanding of that anthropos who, despite the rebellion of Promethean man against Heaven from the period of Renaissance and its aftermath, is still the inner man of every man, the reality which no human being can deny wherever and whenever he lives, the imprint of a theomorphic nature which no historical change and transformation can erase completely from the face of that creature called man.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr