Seyyed Hossein Nasr Quotes

The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

The significance of the vast Islamic scientific tradition for Muslims and especially for young Muslims today is not only that it gives them a sense of pride in their own civilization because of the prestige that science fhas in the present day world. It is furthermore a testament to the way Islam was able to cultivate various sciences extensively without becoming alienated from the Islamic world view and without creating a science whose application would destroy the world of nature and the harmony that must exist between man and the natural environment.

Positivism stands or falls with the principle of scientism, that is that the meaning of knowledge is defined by what the sciences do and can thus be adequately explicated through the methodological analysis of scientific procedures.

Tell me,' asked Stas, 'what is a wicked deed?' 'If anyone takes away Kali's cow,' he answered after a brief reflection, 'that then is a wicked deed.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed Stas, 'and what is a good one?' This time the answer came without any reflection: 'If Kali takes away the cow of somebody else, that is a good deed.' Stas was too young to perceive that similar views of evil and good deeds were enunciated in Europe not only by politicians but by whole nations.

Enhancing long term national security requires that we have a clear-eyed view of radical Islamic terrorism without ascribing radical Islamic terrorist views to all Muslims.

If you compare the United States with Europe, my view is that what happened in Europe is that the church became deeply distrusted by people, because it sided with the monarchs. It instituted the Inquisition and became part of the repressive state apparatus. That never happened here. We don't have that history.

If you look at the curricula of most universities and schools in this country [USA], considering our long encounter with the Islamic world, there is very little there that you can get hold of that is really informative about Islam. If you look at the popular media, you'll see that the stereotype that begins with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik has really remained and developed into the transnational villain of television and film and culture in general.

I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today. ... I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much-needed peace and happiness.

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.

One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination.

We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something--and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being.

There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.

It's a tradition in Islamic society to issue pardons at the end of Ramadan.

I'm not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn't owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us.

Say Bismillah, In the name of God, as the shaykh does with a knife when he offers an animal. Bismillah your old self to find your real name. - Jalaluddin al

Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion, should be done and may, in fact, in the end, be our greatest contribution to civilization.

There are hundreds and hundreds of followers of Islamic State around Europe and the U.S. The Saudis are showing this. And all you have to do is look at the conversation inside of our mosques and inside of our communities.

Bush equals Clinton equals Bush equals Obama equals Clinton. It's the same policies...immigration policies that may turn us into Europe, where hordes of Islamic madmen are raping, killing, pillaging, defecating in public fountains, harassing private citizens, elderly people - that's what's coming.

Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance.

In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution.

History without the history of science, to alter slightly an apothegm of Lord Bacon, resembles a statue of Polyphemus without his eye-that very feature being left out which most marks the spirit and life of the person. My own thesis is complementary: science taught ... without a sense of history is robbed of those very qualities that make it worth teaching to the student of the humanities and the social sciences.

We always think from where we come from. We always think from the sources that shape our understanding. I think about the world through the lens of my Islamic tradition. I accept this but I must also have intellectual humility.

I'm always quite amazed that people in Europe become unnerved when two institutions or two people have different views.

From an Islamic point of view, women are as responsible as men to help people finding their way to God (S.W.T), and to guide society in the right path with all the power they have.

Materialism prevails in Europe today. You may pray for the salvation of the modern sceptics, but they do not yield, they want reason.