Famous Quotes & Sayings

Leila Aboulela Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 49 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Leila Aboulela.

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Famous Quotes By Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1077020

I was 24 years old and stuck in a strange place with two boisterous little boys, and my husband was working offshore on the oil rigs. It was a life for which I wasn't prepared. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1176072

My grandmother studied medicine in the Forties, which was very rare in Egypt, and my mother was a university professor, so my idea of religion wasn't about a woman not working or having to dress in a certain way; it was more to do with the faith. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1751048

Eid Crescent
I feed on bitterness and satiety never comes.
Today sadness has renewed itself.
Let me narrate the story of two souls,
Whose love was struck by the evil eye,
In a twist which Fate had hidden.
Luck won't smile and Time will scorch.
Only the stars know what is wrong with me.
I almost sense them craning to wipe my tears away. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1680464

Many Arabic/Islamic words have now entered the English dictionary, such as haj, hijab, Eid, etc., and I no longer need to put them in italics or explain them. — Leila Aboulela

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My characters are not role-model Muslims, but they struggle to make choices using Muslim logic. — Leila Aboulela

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I'm not middle-class; I do not have a degree. I am upper-class without money. — Leila Aboulela

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The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, When Allah loves a people, He tries them. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1072984

All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical. — Leila Aboulela

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The coverage of Islam in the media is becoming more sophisticated, and there is more access to knowledge. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 594179

The blow, inevitable in itself, comes straight from the source without any intermediaries. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 346082

The sweetest things in life were not necessarily what one strove for and grabbed. Instead, many many times the All-Merciful, the All-Generous would give His servants without being petitioned, without waiting to be asked. — Leila Aboulela

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That's what religion teaches: that life is a temporary thing which is going to dissolve one day. — Leila Aboulela

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Control yourself, it is not worth it. You will regret your rudeness afterwards, your sensitive nature will be troubled — Leila Aboulela

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It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian. — Leila Aboulela

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I write fiction that reflects Islamic logic: fictional worlds where cause and effect are governed by Muslim rationale. However, my characters do not necessarily behave as 'good' Muslims; they are not ideals or role models. — Leila Aboulela

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When you write about a Muslim woman, like I did with my previous novels - 'Minaret', for example, which is about a woman who starts to wear the hijab - it sets all the alarm bells ringing. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1545099

Can I aske forgiveness for someone else, someone whose already dead?
Yes, you can. Of course you can. And you can give charity in their name and you can recite the Qur'an for their sake. All these things will reach them, your prayers will ease the hardship and loneliness of their grave or it will reach them in bright, beautiful gifts. Gifts to unwrap and enjoy and they will know that this gift is from you. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1445597

In the distant past, Muslim doctors advised nervous people to look up at the sky. Forget the tight earth. Imagine that the sky, all of it, belonged to them alone. Crescent, low moon, more stars than the eyes looking up at them. But the sky was free, without any price, no one I knew spoke of it, no one competed for it. Instead, one by one those who could afford it began to sleep indoors in cool air-conditioned rooms, away from the mosquitoes and the flies ... — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1808502

Doctora Zainab looks at her watch. I should leave. But Mai carries her book and sits next to me. She wants me to read it for her. I start to read 'This is the House that Jack Built' and I forget Doctora Zainab's presence there is only Mai's attention and Tamer looking at us. For as long as the book lasts, we are poised, no future, no past.-Minaret — Leila Aboulela

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When I was growing up, we spoke Egyptian, we ate Egyptian food, we had other Egyptian friends. It was my father's preference. — Leila Aboulela

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I read a lot of fiction. — Leila Aboulela

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My father married out of the family. I also married outside the family. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 2073039

Why do bad things happen? For pedagogical reasons, so that we can experience the power of Allah, catch a glimpse of Hell and fear it, so that we can practice seeking refuge in Him and, when relief comes give thanks to His mercy. Darkness was created so that, like plants, we could yearn and turn to the light. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 2106944

I grew up in a very westernised environment and went to a private American school. But my personality was shy and quiet, and I wanted to wear the hijab but didn't have the courage, as I knew my friends would talk me out of it. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 2125150

He said that everything in this world, small or large, was created for a reason. Even the smallest mosquito that bites people and makes them itch. There is wisdom behind that itch, in that it can be a substitute for a corresponding irritation in Hell. He said that every trouble we land in comes from a sin which would not be forgiven without that trouble. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 2163872

I've come down in the world. I've slid to a place where the ceiling is low and there isn't much room for me to move.Most of the time I'm good. I accepted my sentence and do not brood or look back. But sometimes a shift makes me remember. Routine is ruffled and a new start makes me suddenly conscious of what I've become - — Leila Aboulela

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Sudan is not Arab enough for Arabs and not African enough for Africans. — Leila Aboulela

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I wanted to be good but I wasn't sure if I was prepared — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 2247446

My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 678003

This was where she belonged with Nur, right here, here in his songs. Here within the lyrics they were intimate, caught in the rythm of his words, proppelled by the substance of his dreams.
These songs would be their story and these lyrics their home. — Leila Aboulela

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What ages you faster, suffering or experience? — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 181063

Allah tests our patience and our fortitude. He tests out strength of faith. be patient and there will endless rewards for you, insha'Allah - Utaz Badr — Leila Aboulela

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I'm concerned that Islam has not just been politicised but that it's becoming an identity. This is like turning religion into a football match; it's a distraction from the real thing. — Leila Aboulela

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He disliked English, not because they had invaded his country, but because of the effort required to understand their different languages and customs. At the same time, he was in no hurry for them to leave, for he admired them, most of the time, not for the modernity they were establishing but for the business opportunities they brought with them. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 325063

The Mercy of Allah is an Ocean, Our sins are a lump of clay clenched between the beak of a pigeon. The pigeon is perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of that ocean.It only has to open it's beak — Leila Aboulela

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Words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction. — Leila Aboulela

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Who would care if I became pregnant, who would be scandalized? Aunty Eva, Anwar's flatmates. Omar would never know unless I wrote to him. Uncle Saleh was across the world. A few years back, getting pregnant would have shocked Khartoum society, given my father a heart attack, dealt a blow ti my mother's marriage, and mild, modern Omar, instead of beating me, would called me a slut. And now nothing, no one. This empty space was called freedom. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 621904

All my life I had been living. How to imagine any other state? — Leila Aboulela

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So much darkness made her uneasy. There was definitely a weight pushing down on the world. Misfortune was always hovering close around people's shoulders. But she would fight it off, and keep fighting with all her might. Otherwise she would be annihilated by this nameless, all-reaching gloom which she couldn't figure out or map. — Leila Aboulela

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I wasn't trained to write non-fiction. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 679757

What was life like ?
deprivation and abundance, side by side like a miracle. surrender to them both .
Poverty and sunshine, poverty and jewels in the sky .
Drought and the gushing Nile
Disease and clean hearts, stories from neighbours and relationships . — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 680987

I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes! — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 817559

I like talking to you,' he said, slowly.
'Why?' That was the way to hear nice things. Ask why. — Leila Aboulela

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My faith was started off by my grandmother and mother, and so I always saw it as a very private, personal thing. — Leila Aboulela

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I must settle for freedom in this modern time — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1009415

But for Soraya, words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction. She could not help it when she found words written down, taking them in, following them as if they were moving and she was in a trance, tagging along. A book was something to hide, the thick enchantment of it, the shame, almost. When everyone was asleep, she would creep indoors, into stifling, badly lit rooms, with cockroaches clicking, to open a book at a page she had marked and step into its pulsating pool of words. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1027719

This is the enemy, what is irreversible, what has already reached the farthest of places. There is no going back. They can bomb bus-loads of tourists, burn the American flag, but they are not shooting the enemy. It is already with them, inside them, what makes them resentful, defensive, what makes them no longer confident of their vision of the world. — Leila Aboulela

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And why is it that so many years later it is so easy to distinguish the bullies from their prey? Adult bodies surrounding the children of long ago. The years have changed nothing. — Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela Quotes 1211804

I am touched by her life, how it moves forward, pulses and springs. There is no fragmentation, nothing stunted or wedged. I circle back, I regress, the past doesn't let go. It might as well be a malfunction, a scene repeating itself, a scratched vinl record, a stutter. — Leila Aboulela