Muhammad Asad: Quotes about life

Muhammad Asad was Austro-Hungarian writer and academic. Explore interesting quotes on life.
Muhammad Asad: 70   quotes 2   likes

“Within the Islamic concept of society there is no room for the concept of a "secular" state for the simple reason that Islam does not admit of any separation between "religious" and "mundane" life-concerns.”

Muhammad Asad

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Answers of Islam, Answer to Question # 24, p 165

Life

“They (the British Rulers) devised for us an educational system in which all independence of thought would be stifled from the very first stages of one's school life—for, according to Macaulay, such a system was the best means of obtaining suit­able clerks for the offices of the East India Company and, besides, of training obedient subjects.”

Muhammad Asad

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Calling All Muslims, Radio Broadcast # 6, p 112

Life , Education , School , Training

“By imitating the manners and the mode of life of the West, the Muslims are being gradually forced to adopt the Western moral outlook: for the imitation of outward appearance leads, by degrees, to a corresponding assimilation of the world-view responsible for that appearance.”

Muhammad Asad book Islam at the Crossroads

Page. 70.
Islam at the Crossroads (1934)

Life , World , Appearance

“Literally, this word (Islam) denotes "self­-surrender" and, in the deeper sense, "man's self-surrender to God". As soon as we become fully aware that God exists, and thereupon surrender ourselves to Him both in our faith and in our attitudes, we fulfil the meaning of our life.”

Muhammad Asad

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Answers of Islam, Answer to Question # 17, p 158

Life , God , Faith , Sense

“A state inhabited predominantly or even entirely by Muslims is not necessarily synonymous with an "Islamic state": it can become truly Islamic only by virtue of a conscious application of the sociopolitical tenets of Islam to the life of the nation, and by an incorporation of those tenets in the basic constitution of the country.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 1: The Issue Before Us, p 1

Life , Country

“While I thus cogitate in disquiet and perplexity, half submerged in dark waters of a well in an Arabian oasis, I suddenly hear a voice from the background of my memory, the voice of an old Kurdish nomad: If water stands motionless in a pool it grows stale and muddy, but when it moves and flows it becomes clear: so, too, man in his wanderings. Whereupon, as if by magic, all disquiet leaves me. I begin to look upon myself with distant eyes, as you might look at the pages of a book to read a story from them; and I begin to understand that my life could not have taken a different course. For when I ask myself, 'What is the sum total of my life?' somthing in me seems to answer, 'You have set out to exchange one world for another-to gain a new world for yourself in exchange for an old one which you never really possessed.”

Muhammad Asad book The Road to Mecca

And I know with startling clarity that such an undertaking might indeed take an entire lifetime.
Page 48.
The Road to Mecca (1954)

Life , Books , World , Understanding

“We are neither a racial nor a national entity in the conventional meaning of this term; we have become a nation only on the strength of an ideology, a common belief in a particular way of life: and that ideology, that way of life is expressed in one single word: Islam.”

Muhammad Asad

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Calling All Muslims, Radio Broadcast # 4, p 105

Life , Way

“There is not only one form of the Islamic state, but many; and it is for the Muslims of every period to discover the form most suitable to their needs—on the condition, of course, that the form and the institutions they choose are in full agreement with the explicit, unequivocal shariah laws relating to communal life.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 2: Terminology And Historical Precedent, p 23

Life , Law , Communication

“Although science is well qualified to make us progressively comprehend something of the world around us and of the life within us, it is neither able nor called upon to pronounce a judgment regarding the spiritual goal of human life and thus to provide us with ethical guidance.”

Muhammad Asad

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Answers of Islam, Answer to Question # 3, p 142

Life , World , Science

“Islam is a complete, self-contained ideology which regards all aspects of our existence—moral and physical, spiritual and intellectual, personal and communal—as parts of the indivisible whole which we call "human life."”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 6: Conclusion, p 95

Life , Communication , Parting , Personality

“Our reason tells us that a community based on ideas held in common is a far more advanced manifestation of human life than a community resulting from race or language or geographical location.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 6: Conclusion, p 96

Life , Communication , Idea