Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles QUOTES

1 " My value as a woman is not measured by the size of my waist or the number of men who like me. My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life-despite what fashion magazines say-is something more sublime than just looking good for men. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

2 " Deprived is the one who has never witnessed his own desperate need for God. Reliant on his own means, he forgets that the means, his own soul, and everything else in existence are His creation. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

3 " The human currency of praise is Monopoly money. It feels great for a moment to collect, but when the game is over, it's worthless. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

4 " [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. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

5 " If given a choice between stoic justice and compassion, I choose compassion. And if given a choice between worldly leadership and heaven at my feet—I choose heaven. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

6 " Sometimes, the ocean floor is only a stop on the journey. And it is when you are at this lowest point, that you are faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up — stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

7 " It’s never easy to stand when the storm hits. And that’s exactly the point. By sending the wind, He brings us to our knees: the perfect position to pray. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

8 " 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. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

9 " 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. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

10 " In his mercy, He sent the storm itself to make us seek help. And then knowing that we’re likely to get the wrong answer, He gives us a multiple choice exam with only one option to choose from: the correct answer. The hardship itself is ease. By taking away all other hand-holds, all other multiple choice options, He has made the test simple.
It’s never easy to stand when the storm hits. And that’s exactly the point. By sending the wind, He brings us to our knees: the perfect position to pray "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

11 " The enduring life is the one that begins once we awaken from this world. And it is in that awakening that we realize… It was only a dream "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

12 " So often we think that Allah only tests us with hardships, but this isn’t true. Allah also tests with ease. He tests us with na`im (blessings) and with the things we love, and it is often in these tests that so many of us fail. We fail because when Allah gives us these blessings, we unwittingly turn them into false idols of the heart. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

13 " To empty the heart does not mean to not love. On the contrary, true love, as God intented it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment. The process of first emptying the heart can be found in the beginning half of the shahada (declaration of faith). "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

14 " Know that transformation sometimes begins with a fall. So never curse the fall. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

15 " 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. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

16 " So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Sometimes we fail to recognize the direct connection between the pain in our lives and our relationship with Allah SWT "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

17 " Time of difficulty test our faith, our fortitude and our strenght. During these times, the level of our imaan becomes manifest "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

18 " Don’t grieve at the stab.
It’s only meant to free you.
From the chains that bind you to the earth
and shackle you to the shadows of people.
The mirage of water cannot quench.
But is so beautiful to the thirsty.
I’m afraid. Of never knowing another life.
Different. So different.
If I let go, will You take me higher?
Above grief, want, loss.
Above all that I’ve ever known.
Take me higher. Unbind me from the earth.
Like a vaccine, it sickens, to make you stronger.
The stab is temporary. The freedom, eternal. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

19 " In His infinite mercy, Allah has
sent the light of Ramadan to erase the night. He has sent the month of the Qur’an so that He might
elevate us and bring us from our isolation to His nearness. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles

20 " If there is one recipe for unhappiness it is that: expectations. "

― Yasmin Mogahed , Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles