How did the Turks become Muslim? They became Muslim through the Sufis. The Arabs never conquered the Turks. There were people in early Islam who were speaking like Hallaj, who spoke about the Truth, about reaching the Truth, about being one with the Truth, and not only they were not killed, but they were great heroes of their own culture, and there is a university in Turkey named after one [Sufi Saint.]
Seyyed Hossein NasrThe Shariah has many other functions but also protects the tarqiah; it protects the spiritual path.
Seyyed Hossein NasrIf you have a billion Muslims, 900 million of them were not brought into Islam by any kind of invasion, but most of them through the Sufis, because human beings are such that they are affected by people of spiritual character. Certainly when they display nobility and hospitality and gentility and love and are not selfish or aggressive, and they are honest.
Seyyed Hossein NasrWhat is tragic today is that there is a number of Muslims who think that all the solutions are to be found simply by external actions. They don't have to do anything within themselves. This is a deeply Western idea - modern, Western idea, where you try to improve the world without improving yourself. And this is what the Muslims who talk about others putting their heads in the sand and that "We are doing jihad and we are political" and so forth, they are emulating a very important mistake of modernism.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr