Top 40 Hamza Yusuf Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego.”

— Hamza Yusuf

2. “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life. Most of which never actually happened.”

— Hamza Yusuf

3. “The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God.”

— Hamza Yusuf

4. “Desire is an attempt to fill the void.”

— Hamza Yusuf

5. “Somewhere on earth there is a door reserved for each soul, and one day each of us will walk through that door never to return to this life again. Where that door is and when we will walk through it are unknowns we must live with and prepare for. Upon death, all of this – this whole world and all of its charms and occupations – will become as if it were all a dream.”

— Hamza Yusuf

6. “Whoever has not thanked people, has not thanked God,” said the Prophet Muhammad.”

— Hamza Yusuf

7. “Act for your world as if you will live forever, and act for your Hereafter as if you are going to die tomorrow.”

— Hamza Yusuf

8. “The Prophet said, “Contentment is a treasure that is never exhausted.”

— Hamza Yusuf

9. “A hadith states, “Anxiety is half of aging.” Another hadith states, “Righteousness will lengthen your life.”

— Hamza Yusuf

10. “People may claim to be “free,” yet they cannot control themselves from gluttony in the presence of food or from illicit sexual relations when the opportunity presents itself. Such a notion of freedom is devoid of substance.”

— Hamza Yusuf

11. “Thinking about the weaknesses or faults of others is forbidden, whether they are present or not. The Prophet said, “There is a tree in Paradise reserved for one whose own faults preoccupied him from considering the faults of others.”

— Hamza Yusuf

12. “Hardship and ease walk hand-in-hand in this world, and embracing them both as being from the same benevolent source ensures that we walk with gratitude for our blessings and gratefulness for our challenges. We sincerely believe that mercy pervades the cosmos, and in recognizing that, we reconnect with the hope of spring, the serenity of summer, the beauty of autumn, and the majesty of winter. Each comes with its gifts, and each call us to reflect.”

— Hamza Yusuf

13. “None of you has achieved faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

— Hamza Yusuf

14. “Purifying the heart is a process. First, one must understand the necessity of having courtesy with God and the importance of fulfilling its requirements, as noted above. Second, one must be aware of the diseases of the heart – aware of their existence, their ailments, and the deleterious complications and troubles that ensue from them, and recognize that these diseases prevent one from attaining this courtesy.”

— Hamza Yusuf

15. “When the Prophet says “brother,” we should interpret this as universal brotherhood, which includes Muslims and non-Muslims.”

— Hamza Yusuf

16. “One of the cures for heedlessness is keeping good and sincere company. It is recognized in virtually all traditions and cultures that the company one keeps has inroads to one’s heart and morality. When surrounded by people who are sincere and trustworthy, one only benefits from them. Even when a person errs, good companions remind him and set him right.”

— Hamza Yusuf

17. “The first is having a hard heart. A man saw the Prophet kiss a baby and asked him, “Do you kiss your children?” The Prophet said, “Indeed, I do.” The man then said, “I have ten children, I never kissed any of them,” which was considered and aspect of the pride of being a tough Arab. To that the Prophet replied, “There is nothing in my religion for a man whose heart is void of mercy.” The Prophet also said, “Have mercy on those on the earth, and He who is in heaven will have mercy on you.”

— Hamza Yusuf

18. “People say to you, ‘you’ve changed’, or something like that. Well, I hope, for the sake of God, that I have changed, because I don’t want to be the same person all my life. I want to be growing, I want to be expanding. I want to be changing. Because animate things change, inanimate things don’t change. Dead things don’t change. And the heart should be alive, it should be changing, it should be moving, it should be growing and its knowledge should be expanding.”

— Hamza Yusuf

19. “One sign of these conditions is the ease with which people enter into debt and live contentedly with it. People are consciously living beyond their means in order to maintain the appearance of affluence. This is a product of wantonness: willingly falling headlong into debt in order to achieve a certain material standard of living.”

— Hamza Yusuf

20. “One aspect of traditional medicine related to a spiritual cosmology – whether this tradition was Greek, Chinese, or Arab – is the belief that too much food harms the spiritual heart and, in fact, could kill it. It was commonly believed that people who eat in abundance become hardhearted.”

— Hamza Yusuf

21. “The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God. Without it, the spiritual heart dies. The very purpose of revelation and of scripture is to remind us that our hearts need to be nourished.”

— Hamza Yusuf

22. “When people are completely immersed in the material world, believing that this world is all that matters and all that exists and that they are not accountable for their actions, they affect a spiritual death of their hearts.”

— Hamza Yusuf

23. “We live in a fast-food culture, in which we are led to believe that we need to have everything now; it is a culture that causes people to lose a sense of a future worth waiting for.”

— Hamza Yusuf

24. “When one is content, little will suffice. But without contentment, nothing suffices.”

— Hamza Yusuf

25. “This implies that purification is a lifelong process, not something that is applied once and then forgotten. Purity of heart never survives a passive relationship. One must always guard his or her heart.”

— Hamza Yusuf

26. “When paying charity, for example, one should smile and be humble, allowing the hand of the indigent to be above the giver’s hand. It is a privilege to be in a position to offer charity and an honor to fulfill a divine obligation.”

— Hamza Yusuf

27. “Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, a thirteenth century scholar, said that it is possible for anyone to have sincerity in what one does and in what one believes, irrespective of creed.”

— Hamza Yusuf

28. “Meanwhile, life passes on and time runs out. The culture of wanting more simply for the sake of more can occupy a person for an entire lifetime. But in the end, life is over. It terminates for the beggar and the affluent just the same, whether one is old or young, rich or poor, happy or sad.”

— Hamza Yusuf

29. “Freedom has real meaning when, for example, a situation of temptation arises and one remains God-fearing, steadfast, and in control of one’s actions.”

— Hamza Yusuf

30. “The Prophet supplicated that God, the Exalted, show him things in their reality, distinguished and clear: “Show me the truth as truth and give me the ability to follow it; and show me falsehood as falsehood and give me the ability to avoid it.”

— Hamza Yusuf

31. “Isn’t it interesting, that a black man, who is a Muslim, and has the name ‘Muhammad’, is the most beloved athlete in the world?”

— Hamza Yusuf

32. “The cure for hatred is straightforward. One should pray for the person toward whom he feels hatred, making specific supplications that mention this person by name, asking God to give this person good things in this life and the next.”

— Hamza Yusuf

33. “If one wishes not to incur the wrath of God, then one should not be wrathful or angry with people unjustly. Similarly, the Prophet said that whoever makes someone’s path to knowledge easy, God will make his or her path to Paradise easy. And whoever covers the shortcomings of his brother, God will cover his shortcomings in the Hereafter. God, the All-Wise, placed this special reciprocity in this world.”

— Hamza Yusuf

34. “The Prophet also said that the affair of believers is all good. Even if something unpleasant occurs, there is good in it.”

— Hamza Yusuf

35. “The Imam posits that the treatment of wantonness is to intentionally experience hunger and to reflect seriously on death and the Hereafter.”

— Hamza Yusuf

36. “The hadith states that the second sign of wretchedness is a lack of modesty or shame. Among the words revealed to humanity are, “If you feel no shame, do what you will.”

— Hamza Yusuf

37. “God shall not forgive that person until he forgives his brother, for rancor is a serious affliction that festers in one’s heart and blocks good things from coming to one.”

— Hamza Yusuf

38. “Before us they planted, and now we eat what they have planted. We too must plant, so that those after us will likewise eat.”

— Hamza Yusuf

39. “It is a privilege to be in a position to offer charity and an honor to fulfill a divine obligation.”

— Hamza Yusuf

40. “Impure people oppress, and the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status and character.”

— Hamza Yusuf

41. “Everyone’s a believer when things are going fine. The real faith is when one becomes patient with tribulations.”

— Hamza Yusuf