The function of any revelation, in my opinion, is not just to make you feel good but also to agitate you and to take you through the full gamut of human emotions. How else can a sacred text, to use your own words Madeleine, persuade "us lazy, stubborn, egocentric creatures into the true, daily practice of what we believe" and think and rethink about our faith? So, the anger expressed in these verses has a purpose. Its purpose is to direct your gaze at the action of certain believers….

Another kind of prayer is to ask for help in need. This is a delicate thing, and yet it is a great virtue. What a beautiful nature it is that will refrain from asking relief from trouble, from difficulty and suffering, except from the one Friend! This is a virtue and not pride. The door of faith is kept open for that Friend whom we can call upon and ask and obtain ease from. 'There is One to whom I can go in my trouble and distress and despair. Thou art the One, the only One. Thou art He from whom nothing is hidden. If I desire to unburden myself of this trouble, Thou, O Lord, art He to whom I will go.'....

With all our education and learning, with all our claims to civilization, we are not as good as this. We retain the bitterness in our hearts. We never consider what a poison it is. The very person who would shudder at the idea of having something in his body that is decayed and offensive, something that should not be there but should be cut out or removed, will tolerate that poison of bitterness in his mind. He will not remove it; he will foster it. Had he not lacked the sense of forgiveness, and had he not neglected to cultivate the habit of asking forgiveness, he would have become ready to forgive and forget....

All people, not merely the God-conscious (see taqwa), will be resurrected and face God's judgment in the hereafter. As the Qur'an tells us elsewhere, in the hereafter the differences and distinctions about matters of religion will then be made clear to everyone. But God's judgment will concern not only what we believed but what we did, how we lived. All who lived well, who conducted their lives to the best of their ability consistent with consciousness of God's guidance, will be rewarded…..

Al-Fatiha ended with a request for guidance; al-Baqura begins with a discourse on the nature of guidance. This chapter, The Cow, the longest chapter of the Qur'an, takes its name from the familiar Biblical story of the "golden calf" narrated in verses 67-73. However, the cow itself is not the subject of the chapter. In keeping with the general style of the Qur'an this Surah deals with a number of themes, including the nature of belief, the temptation of evil, the wonders of paradise, and the articles and everyday practice of faith......

Humility has several forms, and these are observed according to the customs of different peoples. There exist all kinds of forms of respect, towards parents, teachers or masters; but after examining and studying life keenly, one finds that it is to God alone that all forms of respect are addressed. It is this lesson that the various religions have taught to different peoples according to their needs....

This is the religion which has been the religion of the past and will be the religion of the future. All religion taught by Christ or any other of the great ones, was intended to awaken in man that sense which is awakened when religion is living. It does not matter then into which building one goes to pray, for every moment of one's life has become religion – not a religion in which one believes, but a religion which one lives.....

It is quite easy for this common understanding to become, in religious terms, the equivalent of just keep on doing what people have always done. Follow in the footsteps of tradition, do what custom authorises, that's what the straight path has always been so why should you argue or question? But I am less and less convinced this can be the appropriate way to understand the straight path......

If anybody asks what Sufism is, what kind of religion is it, the answer is that Sufism is the religion of the heart, the religion in which the thing of primary importance is to seek God in the heart of mankind. There are three ways of seeking God in the human heart....

If the lowest common denominator of feminism is about extending the same legal rights and opportunities to both sexes/genders as well as valuing their respective contributions to society equally in order to engender a gender just society in which all humans can flourish and reach their full potential than being a ‘radical feminist’ is something that we all should aspire to since there is no ‘moderation in justice’......

Every child is born a pupil, one who is willing to learn and willing to believe. As the Prophet Muhammad has said, every soul is born on earth a believer, and it is only later that a man turns into an unbeliever. If he had not been born a believer he would never have learned the language of his country, for if someone had tried to teach him the words and he had refused to accept the teaching as true, he would never have learned the names and characteristics of beings and things….

A Bedouin Arab was sent by Abú Sofian to Medina to assassinate Mohammad. The emissary was tracked in his evil attempt, and confessed the purpose with which he had come. This is related by Ibn Sád Katib Wakidi as the cause of Mohammad's sending Amr Ibn Omeya to assassinate Abú Sofian.[228] According to Hishamee, Amr was commissioned by the Prophet to fight with Abú Sofián, and to kill him in immediate revenge for the murder of Khobeib and his companions captured at Raji.[...

Having dismissed many of the arguments of western intellectuals about Islam, Norton indicates that neither outright assimilation nor distant toleration is to be preferred: rather she chooses the third option, moving "us" closer to "them". Indeed, she seems to regard this as already having happened....

The one who does not seek for God, is disappointed at the end of his journey of illusion. Throughout the whole journey he did not find the perfection of beauty, goodness, and greatness on the earth, and he neither believed in nor expected to meet such an ideal in heaven. All the disappointments, which are the natural outcome of this life of illusion, disappear when once a person has touched the God-ideal, for what one seeks after in life, one finds in God.....

Traditionalist Muslim scholars see the "straight path" as a straight line, the shortest distance between two points. Some Shia Muslims argue that it refers to Ali, the cousin of Prophet Muhammad and the fourth caliph of Islam. Sufis, or Muslim mystics, see it as gnosis. The great 12th century Andalusian Sufi Ibn Arabi reflects his own philosophy of "unity of being" in his commentary on al-Fatiha. The straight path is thus not as straight and simple as it seems....