Youssou N'Dour Quotes

I am not a Sufi, but I follow the Sufi.

I was sort of born into a Subud cult that has ties to Islam and Indonesia and Middle Eastern spiritualism. My parents were kind of trial-and-error when it came to religion.

Moderate Islam seeks balance between intellect and the heart, between religion and the world, between spirituality and materialism and between individualism and the group

Sufis were always spreading love with their music, and if some kind of extremism is a threat to it, it is a threat to all humanity.

Sufi music talks about connecting people. It talks about connecting hearts and connecting man with God. Everything that talks about connection is Sufi.

Ataturk approved of the mevlevi dervish approach to God as being 'an expression of Turkish genius' that reclaimed Islam from what he saw as hide-bound, backward Arab tradition.

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

I'm very passionate about philosophy and religion.

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.

Ever since I was young, I was always interested in exploring spirituality. I know that there are many paths to God, there is not just one path.

My grandfather was a faith healer and medium, and he always encouraged faith in the unseen. I believe in fortune tellers.

I'm interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or 'explains,' the larger mysteries of religion.

I reject any path which rejects life, but I can't help loving Sufism because it sounds so beautiful. It gives relief in the midst of battle.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

I haven't been baptised. My dad's not in the church and is not a religious person. My mum is more spiritual - she does Thai-chi and goes to Stonehenge and things like that. I'm proud to be pagan. Finland is not really a religious country. I'm still looking for my god.

When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement.

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

I started listening to Sufi music when I was 21.

I don't know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystic experiences? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism?

How did the Turks become Muslim? They became Muslim through the Sufis. The Arabs never conquered the Turks. There were people in early Islam who were speaking like Hallaj, who spoke about the Truth, about reaching the Truth, about being one with the Truth, and not only they were not killed, but they were great heroes of their own culture, and there is a university in Turkey named after one [Sufi Saint.]

Without Sufism, Islam would not have spread into two thirds of what we call the Islamic world.

The occult stuff, I grew up having a fascination about world religion and that fascination grew into other religions and other things and I kind of dabbled my way into the occult and started reading about the occult.

I have friends who practice witchcraft, and I study tarot myself. I guess, to be specific, I don't want to believe in a world without magic.