53 Quotes by Leila Aboulela

I like talking to you,' he said, slowly.'Why?' That was the way to hear nice things. Ask why.

Allah tests our patience and our fortitude. He tests out strength of faith. be patient and there will endless rewards for you, insha'Allah" - Utaz Badr

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, When Allah loves a people, He tries them.

What ages you faster, suffering or experience?

All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.

As if reading his mind, Jamal-al-Din said, 'To get what you love, you must first be patient with what you hate.

I said that I was not a good Muslim but that I was not a bad person.I said I had a brother that I wanted to keep in touch with. I said that I wanted to give up my share of the inheritance to him. Apart from my father's Russian books and Russian keepsakes, I wanted nothing. I said that I did not come here today to fight over money or for the share of a house. I came so that I would not be an outcast, so that I would, even in a small way, faintly, marginally, tentatively, belong.

In the distant past, Muslim doctors advised nervous people to look up at the sky. Forget the tight earth. Imagine that the sky, all of it, belonged to them alone. Crescent, low moon, more stars than the eyes looking up at them. But the sky was free, without any price, no one I knew spoke of it, no one competed for it. Instead, one by one those who could afford it began to sleep indoors in cool air-conditioned rooms, away from the mosquitoes and the flies...

This is the enemy, what is irreversible, what has already reached the farthest of places. There is no going back. They can bomb bus-loads of tourists, burn the American flag, but they are not shooting the enemy. It is already with them, inside them, what makes them resentful, defensive, what makes them no longer confident of their vision of the world.