What does a lamp do? The lamp is like a horse that is running but stays put. But by virtue of being a lamp it illuminates the space around it. Therefore, the practice of purifying one's soul, of living virtuously, has tremendous impacts upon the ethics of the surrounding society.
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 NasrWhat does a lamp do? The lamp is like a horse that is running but stays put. But by virtue of being a lamp it illuminates the space around it. Therefore, the practice of purifying one's soul, of living virtuously, has tremendous impacts upon the ethics of the surrounding society.
Seyyed Hossein NasrRumi is one of the great spokesmen for the Quranic instruction teaching that all prophets come from God and God does not create one religion, but many religions.
Seyyed Hossein NasrOnly in the West did a philosophy develop that was not only no longer the love of wisdom but went so far as to deny the category of wisdom as a legitimate form of knowledge. The result was a hatred of wisdom that should more appropriately be called โmisosophyโ (literarily hatred of Sophia, Wisdom) rather than philosophy.
Seyyed Hossein NasrIn 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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr