Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship Quotes

“According to Ibn ‘Abbās, may God be pleased with him and his father, the Prophet David, God bless him and give him peace, used to say in his intimate Prayers: ‘My God, who inhabits Your House? And from whom do you accept the Prayer?’ Then God told him by inspiration: ‘David, he who inhabits My House, and he whose Prayer I accept, is none but he who is humble before My Majesty, spends his days in remembrance of Me and keeps his passions in check for My sake, giving food to the hungry and shelter to the stranger and treating the afflicted with compassion. His light shines in the sky like the sun. If he invokes Me, I am at his service. If he asks of Me, I grant his request. In the midst of ignorance, I give him discernment; in heedlessness, remembrance, in darkness, light. He stands out among ordinary people as Paradise towers over earthly gardens, its rivers inexhaustible and its fruits not subject to decay.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“Worship in Islam is not only observance of the prescribed worship rites – Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting, Pilgrimage – but living one’s entire life in obedience to God, doing His will and seeking His pleasure, exactly in the way He has laid down.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“placing the Ka’ba between my brows, the Bridgeover-Hell beneath my feet, Paradise to my right and Hell to my left, and the Angel of Death behind me, thinking all the while that this is my final Prayer. Then I stand between hope and fear.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“Whenever the time of Prayer approached, ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God be pleased with him and ennoble his countenance, used to quake and change colour. They asked him: ‘What is the”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“Worship in Islam is not only observance of the prescribed worship rites –Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting, Pilgrimage –but living one’s entire life in obedience to God, doing His will and seeking His pleasure, exactly in the way He has laid down.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“ibn al-Musayyab said: ‘If a person performs Prayer in a wilderness, an angel prays on his right and an angel prays on his left. If he also gives the Call to Prayer and the signal to begin, angels perform Prayer behind him in rows like mountain ranges.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“matter with you, Commander of the Believers?’ To this he would reply: ‘The time has come for a trust which God offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it; they were wary of it, but I have taken it on.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“The five set Prayers are an expiation, for there is something amongst them by which major sins are repelled.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“make a kindness complete: thinking little of it, doing it promptly, and keeping it out of sight.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“Uqba ibn Muslim said: ‘No quality in a man is dearer to God, Great and Glorious is He, than the longing to meet Him. At no moment is a man closer to God, Great and Glorious is He, than when he sinks down in prostration.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“Said the Prophet, on him be peace: ‘On the Day of Resurrection, three people will find themselves on a ridge of black musk. They will have no reckoning to fear, nor any cause for alarm while human accounts are being settled. First, a man who recites the Quran to please God, Great and Glorious is He, and who leads the Prayer to people’s satisfaction. Second, a man who gives the Call to Prayer in a Mosque, inviting people to God, Great and Glorious is He, for the sake of His good pleasure. Third, a man who has a hard time making a living in this world, yet is not distracted from the work”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

“If a man meets God when he has been negligent of the Prayer, God will pay no attention to his other virtues.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship