Jeffrey Lang Quotes & Sayings

You cannot simply read the Quran,not if you take it seriously.You either have surrendered to it already or you fight it.
It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.
From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side. — Jeffrey Lang

You can't battle life,' she said. 'You have to learn to treat it like a waltz and your problems are your partner. Step lightly, try to keep time with the music and smile. — Jeffrey Lang

Abdur Rab offers a comprehensive vision of Islam using the Quran as his sole religious textual source. He intentionally avoids the hadith literature, which he believes, and argues, has done much damage to the message of the Quran. His work provides many thought-provoking insights and should be a significant contribution to the 'Quran only' movement in modern Islam. — Jeffrey Lang

Personal ignorance should be admitted, but it should not be allowed to place limits and bounds on the ways 'and means of revelation. — Jeffrey Lang

No one knows loneliness like an atheist. When an average person feels isolated, he can call through the depths of his soul to One who knows him and sense an answer. An atheist cannot allow himself that luxury, for he has to crush the urge and remind himself
of its absurdity. — Jeffrey Lang

I told her that we go to work to provide for our families, attend school functions that our children are involved in, take a few pieces of cake we just baked over to our neighbor next door, drive our children to school in the morning. "No! No!" She said. "How do you worship?" I said we make love to our spouses, smile and greet someone we pass on the street, help our children with their homework, hold open a door for someone behind us. "Worship! I'm asking about worship!" She exclaimed. I asked her exactly what she had in mind. "You know-Rituals!" She insisted. I answered her that we practice those also and that they are a very important part of Muslim worship. I was not trying to frustrate her, but I answered her in this way in order to emphasize Islam's comprehensive conception of worship. — Jeffrey Lang

As I read the Qur'an and prayed the Islamic prayers, a door to my heart was unsealed and I was immersed in an overwhelming tenderness. — Jeffrey Lang

Even in our most intense worship, we should not forget that our relationship to god is tied to our relationship with others. — Jeffrey Lang

The Qur'an sought to reform, not to destroy and start from scratch, to
salvage what was useful and then to modify and build on it. The task was
to get the Arabs to think about religion in a novel way, to inculcate in them a new conceptual frame of reference, to transfer them from one worldview to another, and higher, one. This process of transformation took them from traditionalism to individualism, from impulsiveness to discipline, from supernaturalism to science, from intuition to conscious reasoning and, in the end, ideally, harmonized the whole. — Jeffrey Lang

The Qur'an does not ask for human perfection, but rather
asks that we persevere in striving for self-improvement and that we never
become complacent or despondent about our progress. — Jeffrey Lang