Quotessence
Home / Authors / Yasmin Mogahed Books
Yasmin Mogahed

Yasmin Mogahed Books

Columnist

Related Quotes

“The people who broke me were not to blame any more than gravity can be blamed for breaking the vase. We can’t blame the laws of physics when a twig snaps because we leaned on it for support. The twig was never created to carry us.”

Self EsteemHeartbreakBroken HeartSelf Help QuotesBreakup Quotes
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“With my veil I put my faith on display—rather than my beauty. My value as a human is defined by my relationship with God, not by my looks. I cover the irrelevant. And when you look at me, you don’t see a body. You view me only for what I am: a servant of my Creator. You see, as a Muslim woman, I’ve been liberated from a silent kind of bondage. I don’t answer to the slaves of God on earth. I answer to their King.”

GodIslamHijabVeilMuslim Woman
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“Allah (glorified is He) tells us in a very profound ayah (verse): “Verily with hardship comes ease.” (Qur’an, 94:5). Growing up I think I understood this ayah wrongly. I used to think it meant: after hardship comes ease. In other words, I thought life was made up of good times and bad times. After the bad times, come the good times. I thought this as if life was either all good or all bad. But that is not what the ayah is saying. The ayah is saying WITH hardship comes ease. The ease is at the same time as the hardship. This means that nothing in this life is ever all bad (or all good). In every bad situation we’re in, there is always something to be grateful for. With hardship, Allah also gives us the strength and patience to bear it.”

InspirationalGodReligionSufferingPatienceIslamHardshipStrength Through Adversity
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“Let go of your grudges. Let the bitterness die tonight. Make a decision today that it’s time to move on. And begin again. New, this time. Never forget that what has passed you by was never meant to befall you. And what has befallen you, was never meant to pass you by. Know that sometimes Allah withholds from you, in order to give you something better. Keep your heart focused on Him, and He will take care of the rest. And remember: you will stumble, but that’s part of the path. Keep going. Keep rising, and refuse to give up.”

Decision
Author:Yasmin Mogahed
Create image

“I could never forget, and the break never mended. Like a glass vase that you place on the edge of a table, once broken, the pieces never quite fit again. However the problem wasn't with the vase, or even that the vases kept breaking. The problem was that I kept putting them on the edge of tables.”

PsychologySelf Help
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“I was expecting this life to be what it is not, and was never meant to be: perfect. And being the idealistic that I am, I was struggling with every cell in my body to make it so. It had to be perfect. And I would not stop until it was. I gave my blood, sweat, and tears to this endeavor: making the dunya into jannah.”

PsychologyIslam
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“If our inner state is dependent on something changing and temporary, that inner state will be in a constant state of instability, agitation, and unrest. This means that one moment we're happy, but as soon as that which our happiness depended upon changes, our happiness also changes.”

PsychologySelf HelpIslam
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“I have so much respect for the emotionally brave. The ones who put in the emotional work and take the real risks of being vulnerable and removing masks. It's easy to make chitchat, but it's hard to speak about what's really under the surface. It's easy to joke, but difficult to cry. It's easy to numb, but hard to feel. Ironically the real victims of emotional laziness are the people themselves. They end up choosing their emotional comfort zones over happiness. So in the end, they may not be 'uncomfortable' anymore; but they are also miserable.”

BraveryVulnerability
Author:Yasmin Mogahed
Create image

“[A Letter to the Culture that Raised Me] I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.”

SpiritualityWomenSocietyModesty
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“And while it’s nice of you to want to call us ‘modern’ or ‘moderate,’ we’ll do without the redundancy. Islam is by definition moderate, so the more strictly we adhere to its fundamentals — the more moderate we’ll be. And Islam is by nature timeless and universal, so if we’re truly Islamic — we’ll always be modern. We’re not ‘Progressives’; we’re not ‘Conservatives’. We’re not ‘neo-Salafi’; we’re not ‘Islamists’. We’re not ‘Traditionalists’; we’re not ‘Wahabis’. We’re not ‘Immigrants’ and we’re not ‘Indigenous’. Thanks, but we’ll do without your prefix. We’re just Muslim.”

IslamConservativeTraditionalProgressiveMuslimModernismSalafiWahabiImigrants
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“Mi nismo ‘progresivci’, mi nismo ‘konzervativci’. Mi nismo ‘neoselefije’, mi nismo ‘sufije’, mi nismo ‘islamisti’, mi nismo ‘modernisti’. Mi nismo ‘tradicionalisti’, mi nismo ‘vehabije’. Mi nismo ‘imigranti’ i mi nismo ‘autohtoni’. Hvala vam, ali radije ćemo bez vaših prefiksa. Mi smo samo muslimani.”

MuslimaniImigrantiIslamistiKonzervativciModernistiNeoselefijeProgresivciSufijeTracionalistiVehabije
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what’s eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal. So the yearning for that type of life is a part of our being. The problem is that we try to find that here. And so we create ageless creams and cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to hold on—in an attempt to mold this world into what it is not, and will never be.”

HumansReligionHeavenSelf HelpPerfectionSatisfactionPerfectionist
Book:Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles
Create image

“How could you feel worthless when God has honoured you by creating you and choosing you to be with Him, in this life and the next? You are worthy. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You haven't failed. You're beautiful. Only the beautiful can see beauty. Never doubt your beauty. Never doubt your worth. It's not about how much you make, your grades, what people say or think. It's about you and God. It's about your heart. The blinding beauty of your heart.”

PeopleThinkingFeelsHeartBeautifulNextDoubtLove YouHavensCreatingRespectWorthyThis LifeGradesWorth ItHonoredWorthlessLove And RespectYou Re BeautifulWorthy Of Love
Author:Yasmin Mogahed
Create image

“I tell you to keep going, not because it's easy. Not because it doesn't hurt. I tell you to keep going because there's no other way. To stop is to die. Life is in motion. In growth. In change. Life is in seeking and in finding. Life is in redemption. Each moment is a new birth. A new chance to come back, to get it right. A new chance to make it better.”

WayMomentsLife IsDiesEasyGrowthHurtChanceBirthFindingsSeekingRedemptionLife ChangingKeep Going
Author:Yasmin Mogahed
Create image