Jalaluddin Abdullah

“They measure themselves by different standards: they spend in ease, and they spend in hardship, وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظ, and they swallow their anger even when their anger is justified. They don’t just avoid doing the things that are haram in anger, but they also make sure that they swallow their anger so that it is used only for good. They don’t use their anger for things that are petty. They don’t use their anger for things that are displeasing to Allah. They control their anger even when it may be justified because they want Allah to withhold His anger from them. وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ, And they pardon people even when they are in the right.”
― Suleiman Omar, Allah Loves

“Allah loves those who trust Him. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Āmīn.”
― Suleiman Omar, Allah Loves

“Another narration of Imam Aḥmad (Allah’s mercy be upon him) adds that “the same way He loves that you avoid the things that are acts of disobedience to Him. Allah loves that you accept His gifts, that you take the easy way He has given you, that you take His concessions.”
― Suleiman Omar, Allah Loves

“I learned that the world of men as it exists today is a bureaucracy. This is an obvious truth, of course, though it is also one the ignorance of which causes great suffering.

“But moreover, I discovered, in the only way that a man ever really learns anything important, the real skill that is required to succeed in a bureaucracy. I mean really succeed: do good, make a difference, serve. I discovered the key. This key is not efficiency, or probity, or insight, or wisdom. It is not political cunning, interpersonal skills, raw IQ, loyalty, vision, or any of the qualities that the bureaucratic world calls virtues, and tests for. The key is a certain capacity that underlies all these qualities, rather the way that an ability to breathe and pump blood underlies all thought and action.

“The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability to deal with boredom. To function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and human. To breathe, so to speak, without air.

“The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable.

“It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King