Hamza Yusuf quotes:

A democracy is predicated on an educated citizenry. You cannot have a democracy with people that are more interested in what Nicole Kidman is doing or whoever the latest fashion model is.

If you are looking for happiness in this world (dunya), you're in the wrong place.

Every civilization: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, all of them understood that LEARNING was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING, LEARNING was NOT to MAKE MORE MONEY; It was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING.

And that is the secret of this world. If you remove love of dunya from your heart, the dunya is yours for the taking. You can have the dunya because it's in your hand and not in your heart

There are irrational fears. If you see a woman wearing a hijab and fear is your first thought, something's really wrong.

Where is your heart? Is your heart with God? Is it with your own ego or your lust? Is it with your greed, your pride, envy, or your resentment? This is a time where you can go into yourself and ask: Where is my heart? Ramadan is a time to give the heart back to the One who possesses the hearts.

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

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.

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.

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

Call on your Lord when your heart is brittle, that is a time when it's in pieces and the Light of Allah can fill the gaps. That is why Allāh is with the broken hearted.

Desire is an attempt to feel the void.

I definitely have sympathy for people who are struggling. I've met with young Muslims who have told me about their struggles.

I don't have any control over what other people do, and they don't represent me or my faith.

If Islam is not making you happy, then something is wrong with your Islam

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

The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego.

After that one fitnah, every time it calms down in one place, it starts somewhere else.

America has an immense amount of power, but it doesn't use it in any benevolent way. It uses it to maintain a status quo.

America is about choices, including those to live certain lifestyles.

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

Everything that we do has a spiritual essence. There is a spiritual dimension in everything. All of life has meaning and everything that you do in life is in preparation for your great meeting. This great meeting is your meeting with your Lord, which is absolutely inevitable.

For young people, if someone tells you: you are the future - say No! I'm the present. You have things to do right now.

Force yourself to be humble, until it becomes second nature. Then it will be an unconscious activity.

I can't - and won't - impose my beliefs on others, either verbally or otherwise. I'm not going to judge people.

I don't have the power to issue papal decrees.

I know that people can live celibate lives, I did it myself for many years.

I think that's deeply rooted in Muslim consciousness, the idea of not submitting to anything other than God. "You can abuse me, but you're not going to win me over. But if you treat me with respect and dignity, I'm going to fall in love with you. I'm going to sing your praises all over the world because you're powerful and you treated me with human dignity."

If you don't wake up for Fajr, then don't wake up at all

If you had one word to describe the root of all this rage, it's humiliation.

If you take a child and you throw the child up there is a point where you see this, they go into this state of complete panic and then when they come back to your arms they are laughing. That is dunya, I guarantee you, that moment, that is your life, you came from God and you are going back to God and there is just a moment when you are in a complete state of panic but just relax, you are in good hands. Just relax.

I'm amazed at the courage of the journalists on the frontlines in Iraq, but we need intellectual courage in our community.

In our inherent contradictions as humans, and in order to validate our own pain, we deny the pain of others. But it is in acknowledging the pain of others that we achieve fully our humanity

In the Communist period, the revolutionaries, the leaders were almost always - Che Guevara, people like that - they were always from the middle class and the educated. And empathy is a very powerful emotion.

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

Knowledge is taken from breath, not lives in a book

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.

Muhammad Ali put an end to the idea that you can't be an American and a Muslim.

Muslims are peace-loving people generally. Among the young, yes, there are some militant attitudes. But a lot of it arises out of chivalry.

Muslims have been an almost entirely benevolent force in the 20th century. They did not wreak the havoc the Western powers wreaked on the world. They have not come anywhere near to the environmental degradation that we've done to the planet. So I think Muslims need to be seen in the proper light. They're mostly decent, hardworking people, people with deep family values, and they want to live in peace.

Opinion is not knowledge. You're entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts.

People can't think when their minds are clouded with fear.

People have to be exposed to Muslims, just experience Muslims; talk to them. Reach out, read about Islam, try to find out about it.

People of the world will reject your reminders, because it reminds them that this world is temporary.

People say to you, 'you've changed', or something like that, well, I hope, for the sake of God, that you have changed, because I don't want to be the same person all my life. I want to be growing, I want to be expanding. I want to be changing. Because animate things change, inanimate things don&'t change. Dead things don't change. And the heart should be alive, it should be changing, it should be moving, it should be growing, its knowledge should be expanding.

Perhaps, a sin that humbles you is better than a good deed that makes you arrogant.

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

Reality of things is hidden in the realm of the unseen

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

The vast majority of Muslims would never accept the lawfulness of an active homosexual lifestyle. I don't see that happening. But there is also no authority in the tradition for any individual to take things into his own hands and impose their version of the religion on someone else.

There are 20,000 Muslim physicians in the United States, Americans putting their lives in the hands of Muslims every day.

There's a statement in the Quran: There should be "absolutely no compulsion in religion."

There's no specific punishment in the books of fiqh (Islamic laws) that relate to homosexuality per se. They apply to any illicit sexual relations, including prohibited heterosexual acts like adultery. And the punishments are strong, but they are legal fictions because they are impossible to prove. You need four witnesses to say they witnessed (sexual) penetration. In what circumstances are you going to find someone to testify to that?

We are in a waking dream... We see worlds where others scheme...

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.

What comes to a person in his or her life, however difficult it may be, perhaps will help a person move closer to God. The response to tribulation is abr, which is patience, perseverance, steadfastness, and resolve. Allāh loves the patient; part of the reason the tribulation comes is to draw the quality of patience out of them - He loves this quality.

Whatever is for the sake of Allah will go on and continue. Whatever is for other than Allah, it will end and be severed

When paying charity, one should smile and be humble, allowing the hand of the indigent to be above the giver's hand.

Without discipline, Religion would be impossible

You cannot honour the prophet by dishonouring his teaching.

You will find yourself in the Quran, I guarantee you.