Inspiration – The Commonplace Notebook

Quranic Quote of the Week #12: Race to Do Good

There is an unfortunate and incorrect stigma that Islam is an intolerant faith. So to wrap up my Quranic Quotes of the Week series, I’d like to give 10 examples of how the Quran REALLY instructs believers to view and treat those of other religions.

Quranic Quote of the Week #11: The Sincere Gift

“The only thing that prevents what they give from being accepted is the fact that they disbelieve in God and His Messenger, perform the prayer lazily, and give grudgingly.” (Quran, 9:54)

Quranic Quote of the Week #9: Neither Their Meat nor Their Blood

“Devote yourselves to God and assign Him no partners, for the person who does so is like someone who has been hurled down from the skies and snatched up by the birds or flung to a distant place by the wind. …

“We have made camels part of God’s sacred rites for you, … so invoke God’s name over them as they are lined up for sacrifice. … It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches God but your piety.” (Quran, 22:31, 36–37)

Quranic Quote of the Week #3: I Only Follow What Is Revealed to Me

“When Our clear revelations are recited to them, those who do not expect to meet with Us say, ‘Bring us a different Qur’an, or change it.’ Prophet, say, ‘It is not for me to change it of my own accord; I only follow what is revealed to me, for I fear the torment of an awesome Day, if I were to disobey my Lord. … I lived a whole lifetime among you before it came to me. How can you not use your reason?’” (Quran, 10:15–16)

Quranic Quote of the Week #2: Oceans of Ink

“Say, ‘If the whole ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry before those words were exhausted’—even if We were to add another ocean to it.” (Quran, 18:109)

“If all the trees on earth were pens and all the seas, with seven more besides, were ink, still God’s words would not run out. God is almighty and all wise.” (Quran, 31:27)

Quranic Quote of the Week #1: Guardian Angels before Us

“It makes no difference whether any of you speak secretly or aloud, whether you are hiding under cover of night or skulking about in the day: each person has guardian angels before him and behind, watching over him by God’s command.” (Quran, 13:11)

For better or worse, none of us can hide from God. But that’s not as bad as it sounds.

Deadly “Sins”

Pride

A pride of lions, streaking majestically across the savannah to hunt for their young. A father and mother, proud to overflowing of their child’s achievements. A nation of Yankee patriots, proud of the freedoms they have won for generations to come.

Ten Commandments

Thou shalt have no other gods before me—

—but that’s not to say you should only have one God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: All one God, but at the same time three, like a three-leaf clover, or the anatomy of an egg, or Neapolitan ice cream, or whichever analogy suits your fancy. Not monotheistic, but monolatrous.

Apocryphal Scripture of the Week #9: I Will Prove Myself Worthy

Apocryphal Scripture of the Week: (see Doctrine and Covenants 91)

Eleazar—yet another wise old Jewish man from the scriptures—faces a dilemma. The heathens currently in control of Jerusalem are forcing the believers to violate the Law of Moses by eating pork. Like the prophet Daniel once did, however, Eleazar refuses to do so, honoring his covenant with God.