The word Habib in Arabic means both lover and beloved. At the heart of it is that the Prophet loves God, God loves him. But God designated him to be also the founder of a new world order of a civilization of a society.

The Prophet was taken by the order of God to heaven, which is a prototype of all spiritual realization in Islam. But, he had a guide; Gabriel, the angel, was his guide. He took him to heaven.

In the field of medicine, if you're sick you need a doctor. A doctor has already studied how to deal with your ailments, and human beings are imperfect. There any many ailments of the psyche and the soul that need to be treated, and the serious murshid, or spiritual master, is also really a doctor of the soul: a person who can heal the wounds of the soul in the same way as a medical doctor takes care of our physical problems.

In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.

Muhammad sets the model for being a good statesman. He also sets the model for being a good warrior, for chivalry, of nobility, of all the things which the Quran and Hadith [The recorded collections of the sayings and traditions of the Prophet] says of treating your enemy with dignity and kindness.

I wish someone could get rid of individuality so easily; one never gets rid of one's individuality completely. One gets rid of one's egotism, which is a very different matter.

The Islamic world is not only suffering from the American occupation of Palestine and Iraq, it's also suffering from the unbelievable corruption in Afghanistan by Afghans themselves and also in Iraq - I'm just giving these 2 examples of countries which are under direct occupation; I do not mean at all to negate the terrible events that led to this or what's going on with the foreign occupation there.