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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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: April 7
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
Teheran
Existence
Token
Fall
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Men
Fully
Creatures
Universal
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Levels
Basest
Stop
Ascend
More quotes by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
When one talks about being like a dead corpse in the hands of a spiritual teacher it means being able to surrender one's will, specially one's nafs al ammarah, that is a part of our soul which is again a Quranic term, which commands us to evil - we must surrender that. That's what it means. It doesn't make you become part of a cog of a machine.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
The Prophet, peace be on him, presents all the possibilities of the human state in perfection. Now, a part of that of course is love of God.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Sufism has always had the function of purifying Islamic ethics and that fasting and tazkiya is like lighting a lamp.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
All Muslims stand before God and they are their own priests.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Love is loss combined with pain.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
In fact many Hindu yogis and Sufis met, they became friends, they spoke about the knowledge and love of God about all the similarities that exist. And then the simplicity of Islam, the fact these people practiced what they preached brought many, many Hindus into Islam.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
What does a lamp do? The lamp is like a horse that is running but stays put. But by virtue of being a lamp it illuminates the space around it. Therefore, the practice of purifying one's soul, of living virtuously, has tremendous impacts upon the ethics of the surrounding society.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
If God did not love us, we could not love him. And Sufis are those who have realized this love.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
The environmental crisis has deep spiritual, philosophical, and religious roots and causes. It is not merely the result of bad engineering.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Why does one need a doctor if God has given us our body and we pray to Him for our help?
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
People who were also traders were also men of Sufism, as we see around Java, people who were outwardly trading but were also men of very high spiritual character. Otherwise no trader would be able to convert a person from one religion to another. It was because they were men of spiritual character.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Justice is inseparable from truth in human life.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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
