Gai Eaton Quotes

It is common enough for writers to find that, in the very act of writing, they express ideas and beliefs which they never knew they had; a deeper level of their personality is revealed, a level hidden until then from conscious awareness.

The perfect Muslim, standing upright in the presence of his Maker, at once proud and submissive, free from all illusions and from any bias in dealing with his fellow men, exemplifies fitrah. He is both perfect master and perfect servant.

Meanwhile, the question is not whether we should 'lose ourselves' - since all do so in one way or another - but where we lose ourselves: in light or in darkness, in good dreams or in nightmares, in truth or in falsehood.

The modern Westerner, persuaded that he has a right to 'think for himself' and imagining that he exercises this right, is unwilling to acknowledge that his every thought has been shaped by cultural and historical influences and that his opinions fit, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, into a pattern which has nothing random about it. Statements which begin with the words 'I think...' reflect a climate created by all those strands of belief and experience - as also of folly and corruption - which have gone to form the current mindset and to establish principles which cannot be doubted by any sane and reasonable man in this place and at this point in time.

"The modern Westerner, persuaded that he has a right to "think for himself" and imagining that he exercises this right, is unwilling to acknowledge that his every thought has been shaped by cultural and historical influences and that his opinions fit, like pieces of jigsaw puzzle, into a pattern which has nothing random about it."

The agnostic has a very curious notion of religion. He is convinced that a man who says 'I believe in God' should at once become perfect; if this does not happen, then the believer must be a fraud and a hypocrite. He thinks that adherence to a religion is the end of the road, whereas it is in fact only the beginning of a very long and sometimes very rough road. He looks for consistency in religious people, however aware he may be of inconsistencies in himself

Man is either Viceroy or else he is an animal that claims special rights by virtue of its cunning and the devouring efficiency of teeth sharpened by technological instruments... But if he is Viceroy, then all decay and trouble in the created world that surrounds him is in some measure to be laid to his account

God gave to Adam and to his descendants the gift of intelligence, asking in return, not for blind praise, but for a lucid and joyful understanding of the nature of all things and their source.

All human enjoyment is limited. Paradise is by definition boundless, for it opens out onto the Infinite. On the human level this can be suggested only in numerical terms - we shall have a thousand joys, ten thousand, a million and so on - or in terms of increase without end, but without repetition. Erotic love, for example, will have all the wonder and all the freshness of 'first love' (the 'perpetually renewed virginity' of the 'Houris', which causes so much amusement to Western students of Islam, is an obvious reference to this). Every drink is like the first drink of a thirsty man, though none thirst in Paradise, and every taste of food is like the first taste taken by a starving man, though none starve there, and every meeting is true friendship discovered for the first time, and there is nothing is Paradise that is not newly minted and to be enjoyed with the fresh appetite of youth....The greatest marvel is always overtaken by a greater marvel, the sweetest companionship is forever growing sweeter, and love - though from the very start it seems perfectly consummated - still grows limitlessly. The people of Paradise are constantly surprised, for every time they think that they hold perfection in their hands, and that there can be nothing better than this, they find before them something better still. 'The lowest place of any of you in Paradise,' said the Prophet, 'is that in which Allah will tell him to make a wish, and he will wish and wish again. Allah will then ask him if he has expressed his wish and, when he replies that he has, He will tell him that he is to have what he wished for together with as much again.

We are all of us exposed to grief: the people we love die, as we shall ourselves in due course; expectations are disappointed and ambitions are thwarted by circumstance. Finally, there are some who insist upon feeling guilty over the ill they have done or simply on account of the ugliness which they perceive in their own souls. A solution of a kind has been found to this problem in the form of sedatives and anti-depressant drugs, so that many human experiences which used to be accepted as an integral part of human life are now defined and dealt with as medical problems. The widow who grieves for a beloved husband becomes a 'case', as does the man saddened by the recollection of the napalm or high explosives he has dropped on civilian populations. One had thought that guilt was a way, however indirect, in which we might perceive the nature of reality and the laws which govern our human experience; but it is now an illness that can be cured.
Death however, remains incurable. Though we might be embarrassed by Victorian death-bed scenes or the practices of mourning among people less sophisticated than ourselves, the fact of death tells us so much about the realities of our condition that to ignore it or try to forget it is to be unaware of the most important thing we need to know about our situation as living creatures. Equally, to witness and participate in the dying of our fellow men and women is to learn what we are and, if we have any wisdom at all, to draw conclusions which must in their way affect our every thought and our every act.

Those who know in their hearts that they are not really necessary — and are entirely replaceable — must inevitably be tempted to misrepresent the nature of their work and build up a false notion of its importance. A further alienation from truth takes place, a further loss of contact with reality. And one thing we can be sure of is that self-deception, whether on the level of the wind and the rain or on that of spiritual reality, must always come up against the real sooner or later, and that its destruction is very painful.

A generous man is so because he reflects the qualities expressed in the divine Name al-Karim, 'the Generous'. The man who has beauty of character or the woman who has physical beauty reflects something of al-Jamil, and the strong man would have no strength were it not for al-Qawi, 'the Strong', and al-Qahhar, 'the All-Compelling'. But Allah is also and, indeed, essentially al-Ahad, 'the One'; One alone, One who has no partner, the unique, the incomparable. From this name is derived the relative uniqueness of each human being and the fact that each is - at least potentially - a microcosm, a totality.

Religion is a different matter. Other subjects may lend themselves, in varying degree, to objective study, and in some cases personal commitment serves only to distort what should be a clear and balanced picture. Religion is a different matter for here objectivity only skims the surface, missing the essential. The keys to understanding lie within the observer's own being and experience, and without these keys no door will open. This is particularly true of Islam, a religion which treats the distinction between belief and disbelief as the most fundamental of all possible distinction, comparable only on the physical level to that between the sighted and the blind. Believing and understanding complement and support one other. We do not seek fir an adequate description of a landscape from a blind man, even if he has made a scientific study of its topography, and has analyzed the nature of its rocks and vegetation. In Islam, every aspect of human life, every thought and every action, is shaped by and evaluated in the light of the basic article of faith. Remove this linchpin and the whole structure falls apart.

It is precisely because Islam goes so far in accepting the natural instincts, and in sanctifying them, that it is obliged to 'draw the line' so firmly and to punish with such severity departures from the norm and excursions beyond the limits established by the religious Law. The requirements of social and psychological equilibrium, the need to protect women and the security of children are the motives that determine this Law, and, since the whole social structure is anchored in the family, its infringements threaten society as a whole and are punished accordingly. As a civilization and a 'way of life' Islam stands or falls in terms of the delicate balance maintained between order and liberty, as also between society and the individual.

One of the greatest weaknesses of contemporary Islam is the eagerness with which Muslims ignore facts and lose themselves in dreams, contrary to the example of the Prophet, who was a realist in every possible sense of the term. Realism is by nature serene, because it cannot be surprised or disillusioned, and it is in this spirit of serenity that the Muslim is required to observe and endure the vicissitudes of time and history, fortified by a quality of stillness and of timelessness which is at the heart of his faith. Everything around him moves and changes, but he must remain rooted in stillness; and this is one reason why Muslims claim that all other religions have been, in one way or another, corrupted and altered by the passage of time, whereas Islam, in accordance with God's solemn promise, remains and will always remain what it is.