
“If you had only two words to say to the people of the world, what would they be? Attain Peace.”
Miscellaneous, March 31, 2017
Vol. I, The Way of Illumination, Section I - The Way of Illumination, Part III : The Sufi.
The Spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Context: Is a Sufi a follower of Islam? The word Islam means 'peace'; this is the Arabic word. The Hebrew word is Salem (Jeru-salem). Peace and its attainment in all directions is the goal of the world.
But if the following of Islam is understood to mean the obligatory adherence to a certain rite; if being a Muslim means conforming to certain restrictions, how can the Sufi be placed in that category, seeing that the Sufi is beyond all limitations of this kind? So, far from not accepting the Quran, the Sufi recognizes scriptures which others disregard. But the Sufi does not follow any special book. The shining ones, such as 'Attar, Shams-i Tabriz, Rumi, Sadi, and Hafiz, have expressed their free thought with a complete liberty of language. To a Sufi, revelation is the inherent property of every soul. There is an unceasing flow of the divine stream, which has neither beginning nor end.
“If you had only two words to say to the people of the world, what would they be? Attain Peace.”
Miscellaneous, March 31, 2017
Reaper's Gale (2007)
Context: For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?'
'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.'
'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp, 'that is precisely the point. That's their value — their ability to adapt -'
'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.
“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.”
Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1916-12-19/debates/8572103d-700a-487a-8dd1-c0a99679cc6d/PrimeMinisterSStatement in the House of Commons (19 December 1916)
Later life
Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)