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In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were fine or industrial or minor. It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

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Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: April 7
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
Teheran
Art
Arts
Soul
Traditional
Human
Effect
Humans
Based
Minor
World
Effects
Hierarchy
Fine
Minors
Whether
Industrial
Upon
Islamic

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The Islamic world doesn't stop in the Arab world or Persia. There is the whole Turkic world, the Central Asian world, South Asian world, Southeast Asian world, and African world.
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The love of God is not only the highest form of love, but also in reality the only love of which all other loves are but shadows
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In the same way that we have a body and a soul and a spirit, our soul can't walk in the street without our body - we would be dead then. Religion is the same way it has to have a body, it has to have a form, it has to have structure. Without that, the soul cannot be prepared to follow the tariqah.
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Many people have criticized Islam for being just automatic, having no individuality, just surrendering your will to God, but we Muslims know very well that every moment of the day we have to practice the fact that to surrender one's self to God is an act of free will.
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The word Habib in Arabic means both lover and beloved. At the heart of it is that the Prophet loves God, God loves him. But God designated him to be also the founder of a new world order of a civilization of a society.
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Only 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 ‘misosophy’ (literarily hatred of Sophia, Wisdom) rather than philosophy.
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Only man can stop being fully man. He can ascend above all degres of universal existence and by the same token fall below the level of the basest of creatures.
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All Muslims stand before God and they are their own priests.
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Justice is inseparable from truth in human life.
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The life of Islamic philosophy did not terminate with Ibn Rushd nearly eight hundred years ago, as thought by Western scholarship for several centuries. Rather, its activities continued strongly during the later centuries, particularly in Persia and other eastern lands of Islam, and it was revived in Egypt during the last century.
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Sufism has always had the function of purifying Islamic ethics and that fasting and tazkiya is like lighting a lamp.
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Rumi 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.
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If God did not love us, we could not love him. And Sufis are those who have realized this love.
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In Islam, there is no priesthood and each person stands before God, like in the daily prayers, without an intermediary. That's in contrast to Christianity, where during the Eucharist, a priest has to officiate and the priest functions as a link - at least in Catholic Christianity - between the laity and God.
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Love is loss combined with pain.
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Why does one need a doctor if God has given us our body and we pray to Him for our help?
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The Shariah has many other functions but also protects the tarqiah it protects the spiritual path.
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The environmental crisis has deep spiritual, philosophical, and religious roots and causes. It is not merely the result of bad engineering.
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Spiritual guidance needs guidance. It's like comparing walking on the ground and mountain climbing. Once you learn how to walk, you can walk on the ground by yourself, but if you want to climb Mount Everest, you need a guide.
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I wish someone could get rid of individuality so easily one never gets rid of one's individuality completely. One gets rid of one's egotism, which is a very different matter.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr