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Hamza Yusuf Quotes

Hamza Yusuf Quotes

Enjoy the top 93 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Hamza Yusuf.

“Knowledge is taken from breath, not lives in a book”
— Hamza Yusuf —

“Everyone's a believer when things are going fine. The real faith is when one becomes patient with tribulations.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state.”

— Hamza Yusuf

Language is the crowning achievement of human beings, and that is something Muslims have always known and revered. We are a literate people whose miracle is a Book from an unlettered man, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the most articulate and eloquent human being who ever lived. We honor our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in honoring language that he loved so much and used so well.

— Hamza Yusuf

“We live in the age of Noah (a.s.) in the sense that a flood of distraction accosts us. It is a slow and subtle drowning. For those who notice it, they engage in the remembrance of God. The rites of worship and devotion to God's remembrance (dhikr) are planks of the ark. When Noah (a.s.) started to build his ark, his people mocked him and considered him a fool. But he kept building. He knew what was coming. And we know too.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Reality of things is hidden in the realm of the unseen”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Desire is an attempt to feel the void.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“This is the difference between someone whose heart is purified and sound and one whose heart is impure and corrupt. Impure people oppress, and the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status and character. In order to purify ourselves, we must begin to recognize this truth. This is what this book is all about - a book of self-purification and a manual of liberation. If we work on our hearts, if we actually implement what is suggested here, we'll begin to see changes in our lives, our condition, our society, and even within our own family dynamics. It is a blessing that we have this science of purification, a blessing that this teaching exists in the world today. What remains is for us to take these teachings seriously.
Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart. Translation and Commentary of Imam Mawlud's Matharat al-Qulub. Schaykh Hamza Yusuf. E-Book S. 10”

— Hamza Yusuf

In essence, what is forbidden to do is likewise forbidden as an object of reflection. Included in this is thinking about the weaknesses or faults of others, whether they are present or not. The Prophet said, "There is a tree in Paradise reserved for one
whose own faults preoccupied him from considering the faults of others." Spending time thinking or talking about other people's faults is foolish. Time is short and is better invested in recognizing one's own shortcomings and then working consistently to eradicate them.

— Hamza Yusuf

“Whoever has not thanked people, has not thanked God, said the Prophet Muhammad”

— Hamza Yusuf

“If we want to change our world, we do not begin by rectifying the outward. Instead, we must change the condition of our inward.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“It is of the extraordinary insights of Imam Malik that the first section of his Muwatta', which precedes even the section on ritual purity, is on the times of the prayer. It is the times of prayer that obligate purity. Observing the times of prayer is the first thing we do when we wake and the last thing we do before retiring to bed; it is done in the middle of the day and in its decline. It is an unrelenting reminder of to whom we belong, why we are here, and where we are going.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“One sign of these conditions is the ease with which people enter into debt and live contentedly with it. People are consciously living beyond their means in order to maintain the appearance of affluence. This is a product of wantonness: willingly falling headlong into debt in order to achieve a certain material standard of living.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Somewhere on earth there is a door reserved for each soul, and one day each of us will walk through that door never to return to this life again. Where that door is and when we will walk through it are unknowns we must live with and prepare for. Upon death, all of this
this whole world and all of its charms and occupations
will become as if it were all a dream.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Exercise 1: Guarding the Prayer
Once we are performing the five obligatory prayers with regularity, then it is certainly worth our efforts to begin increasing extra prayers- especially the late-night prayers (tahajjud). Late-night prayer is one of the defining qualities of a salih (righteous) person, also called a wali (friend of Allah). Regarding late-night prayers, Fudayl b. 'Iyyad said that if a man was unable to do them, it was due to his wrong actions during the day. May Allah make us befitting to stand before Him, here and in the hereafter.
Agenda to Change our Condition, Hamza Yusuf & Zaid Shakir, S. 46”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Desire is an attempt to fill the void”

— Hamza Yusuf

Purifying the heart is a process. First, one must understand the necessity of having courtesy with God and the importance of fulfilling its requirements, as noted above. Second, one must be aware of the diseases of the heart-aware of their existence, their ailments, and the deleterious complications and troubles that ensue from them, and recognize that these diseases prevent one from attaining this courtesy.

— Hamza Yusuf

“According to a hadith, the tongue is the "interpreter of the heart." Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in our speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state. According to a prophetic tradition, each morning, when the limbs and organs awaken in the spiritual world, they shudder and say to the tongue, "Fear God concerning us! For if you are upright, then we are upright; and if you deviate, we too deviate." Engaging in the regular remembrance of God (dhikr) safeguards the tongue and replaces idle talk with words and phrases that raise one in honor. The tongue is essential in developing courtesy with God, which is the whole point of existence.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, a thirteenth century scholar, said that it is possible for anyone to have sincerity in what one does and in what one believes, irrespective of creed.”

— Hamza Yusuf

The Imam posits that the treatment of wantonness is to intentionally experience hunger and to reflect seriously on death and the Hereafter.

— Hamza Yusuf

“People may claim to be "free," yet they cannot control themselves from gluttony in the presence of food or from illicit sexual relations when the opportunity presents itself. Such a notion of freedom is devoid of substance.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Freedom has real meaning when, for example, a situation of temptation arises and one remains God-fearing, steadfast, and in control of one's actions.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“One aspect of traditional medicine related to a spiritual cosmology-whether this tradition was Greek, Chinese, or Arab-is the belief that too much food harms the spiritual heart and, in fact, could kill it. It was commonly believed that people who eat in abundance become hardhearted.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“If one wishes not to incur the wrath of God, then one should not be wrathful or angry with people unjustly. Similarly, the Prophet said that whoever makes someone's path to knowledge easy, God will make his or her path to Paradise easy. And whoever covers the shortcomings of his brother, God will cover his shortcomings in the Hereafter. God, the All-Wise, placed this special reciprocity in this world.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Fear of poverty. Scholars have said that nurturing this fear is tantamount to harboring a negative opinion about God, the Exalted, who has revealed, "Satan threatens you with poverty, and he commands you to immorality. But God promises you His forgiveness and bounty" (QUR'AN , 2:268).”

— Hamza Yusuf

The physical heart, which houses the spiritual heart, beats about 100,000 times a day, pumping two gallons of blood per minute and over 100 gallons per hour. If one were to attempt to carry 100 gallons of water (whose density is lighter than blood) from one place to another, it would be an exhausting task. Yet the human heart does this every hour of every day for an entire lifetime without respite. The vascular system transporting life-giving blood is over 60,000 miles long-more than two times the circumference of the earth. So when we conceive of our blood being pumped throughout our bodies, know that this means that it travels through 60,000 miles of a closed vascular system that connects all the parts of the body-all the vital organs and living tissues-to this incredible heart.

— Hamza Yusuf

God shall not forgive that person until he forgives his brother, for rancor is a serious affliction that festers in one's heart and blocks good things from coming to one.

— Hamza Yusuf

“Muslims pursued knowledge to the edges of the earth. Al-Biruni, the central Asian polymath, is arguably the world's first anthropologist. The great linguists of Iraq and Persia laid the foundations a thousand years ago for subjects only now coming to the forefront in language studies. Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the first true scientific historian, argued hundreds of years ago that history should be based upon facts and not myths or superstitions. The great psychologists of Islam known as the Sufis wrote treatise after treatise that rival the most advanced texts today on human psychology. The great ethicists and exegetes of Islam's past left tomes that fill countless shelves in the great libraries of the world, and many more of their texts remain in manuscript form.
In the foreword of "Being Muslim. A Practical Guide" by Dr. Asad Tarsin.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“The Prophet also said that the affair of believers is all good. Even if something unpleasant occurs, there is good in it.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“When people are completely immersed in the material world, believing that this world is all that matters and all that exists and that they are not accountable for their actions, they affect a spiritual death of their hearts.”

— Hamza Yusuf

Some anthropologists divide cultures into shame cultures and guilt cultures. According to this perspective, shame is an outward mechanism, and guilt is an inward one which alludes to a human mechanism that produces strong feelings of remorse when someone has done something wrong, to the point that he or she needs to rectify the matter.

— Hamza Yusuf

“Practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong thing, you make the wrong act permanent.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Allah knows exactly what to give you to help you return to Him. The events in your life are purposeful, appropriate & non-random.”

— Hamza Yusuf

Why do we need to justify God's existence? He exists. We need to justify our own existence.

— Hamza Yusuf

“Intelligent people surround themselves with people who
challenge them, not yes people.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“My experience on this planet is that if you treat people with respect, they tend to treat you with respect.”

— Hamza Yusuf

“Religion is here to unite us. It's not here to divide us. If it's dividing us, it's not God's religion, it's something else.”