The measure
01 / 23
“The measure is in how things end, not in how they begin.”
Named interviewHis answer to everyone who asked why a doctor would leave medicine — and, as the biography puts it, to everyone who would ask after his death. · p. 85
02 / 23
“Practising medicine is a kind of calling, and a kind of doing good.”
Named interviewRecorded in the biography as one of the sayings most often on his tongue — his answer to the idea that he had abandoned one life for another. · p. 80
03 / 23
“By God, every one of us is able to change the world, as the master of creation Muhammad ﷺ changed it. The difference between us and him is that he was sent with revelation from heaven. Beyond that, the matter is a matter of faith: the stronger your faith, the more able you are to give, and to change.”
Named interviewWhat he urged on anyone who asked how an ordinary man begins. · p. 187
The account
04 / 23
“Happiness is not how much you hold in this bank or that. Happiness is how much you hold with the Lord of Glory.”
Named interviewSaid of colleagues and students of his who made millions from medicine. · p. 68
05 / 23
“I could have lived as they live. But by God, I feel for some of them — they think happiness is in the money they carry.”
Named interviewThe sentence immediately before the one above, in the same answer. · p. 68
06 / 23
“Pity those who think happiness lies in money and palaces. They have never tried living among these orphans, praying with them five times a day, or playing football with them — and since I cannot run as they do, I always play in goal, because the goalkeeper’s job takes no great effort.”
“How much, I wonder, would any man pay to be as happy as I am?” Eighteen years separate this from the sentence above. It is the same question, answered twice.
Signed by himAl-Kawthar, August 2006 — on returning to the Ali Al-Karrar centre in south-east Madagascar after three months away. · p. 465
07 / 23
“How can you say I have not fallen short? By God, I have fallen far short in Africa. Today I tour the Gulf, and I have left the orphans and the needy behind. I have fallen short, Shaikh — I have fallen short.”
He left the majlis in tears, and went on repeating it in the car.
Reported by one witnessDr. Khalifa Al-Sha’ali. Said to the Ruler of Ajman, who had told him he had done enough and should rest. · p. 176
08 / 23
“Stay on the straight road and you will be safe.”
Reported by one witnessShaikh Muhammad Al-Khamis, who had suggested moving the charity’s money through the black market in Ethiopia to save on the rate. · p. 107
09 / 23
“We do not give people aid so that they will become Muslims. They are nobler than to be bought with our aid.”
His answer to the question he said he was asked more than any other: whether the newly guided turn back once the aid stops.
Named interviewReference biography · p. 246
10 / 23
“My son, a man has more right to carry his own load.”
Reported by one witnessDr. Fahd Al-Furaidi, who had offered to carry his two sacks of Al-Kawthar for him while he stood waiting in the sun in Dammam, 1427 AH. · p. 100
The road
11 / 23
“There is no success without failure. An ant cannot climb a wall without falling more than once, and the road to success always passes through stations of failure; there is no good in a man who surrenders at the first battle. Whoever wants comfort for his body, let him sit at home beside his wife — God has no need of him.”
“Every year we lose eight to ten of those working with us, in civil wars we do not withdraw from, because that is where the need for our work is greatest. I have had two heart attacks and many illnesses — but all of it is light if the aim you are pursuing is great.” The figure of eight to ten a year is his own, given as he gave it.
Named interviewThe longest surviving statement of how he understood the work. · p. 105
12 / 23
“There is nothing that troubles me more than travel. You spend hours before it preparing and waiting, hours in the air, and more hours on arrival — all of them cut out of your life without producing anything worth mentioning. But the greater trouble is when travel is part of your work, and the basis of your life.”
Named interviewFrom a man who was in the air almost every week for thirty years. · p. 159
13 / 23
“Work in Africa carries a heavy price. At times it may cost a man his life.”
“— especially in relief areas such as southern Sudan, Mozambique, Liberia and Sierra Leone: countries where civil war has become a chronic condition.”
Signed by himAl-Kawthar, January 2003 · p. 259
14 / 23
“My son, I see people serving me for two months — and there are orphans in Africa. If harm came to one of them, where would I flee from the question of the Lord of the Worlds when He asks me about them?”
His son answered that he was excused. He said: “And do you hold a deed to that?”
Reported by one witnessHis son, the engineer Suhaib Al-Sumait, on the programme «عبد الرحمن الفاتح». Said during his final illness. · p. 155
15 / 23
“Brother, we do not wait for anyone’s testimony. We worked in the field, and we wait only for God to accept it from us.”
This one sentence is why the page of what others said about him is built the way it is.
Reported by one witnessShaikh Muhammad Hamad Al-Khamis, in the lecture «السميط شمس أضاءت إفريقيا» · p. 125
The method
16 / 23
“This calling is not sermons in which we raise our voices. It is a reflection of Islam — as creed, as law, and as a way of living.”
“Ninety per cent of those who entered Islam through us entered because of good treatment and good character: they were moved by people’s cleanliness, by their regard for others’ feelings, by how they dealt with one another.” The proportion is his own estimate, published here as his estimate and not as a count.
Signed by himAl-Kawthar, February 2006 · p. 235
17 / 23
“What would it cost our brothers, the callers, to use forbearance and wisdom? By God, we have lost nothing since we took the road of wisdom and fair preaching, instead of harshness — instead of meeting people who are searching for the truth with rulings that take no account of their condition.”
Signed by himAl-Kawthar, August 2005 · p. 225
18 / 23
“I have seen dozens of villages whose people entered Islam and then turned back on their heels, repelled by the manner of such callers.”
“How do we allow ourselves to translate a ruling on covering a woman’s face, print it, and distribute it in African societies where most village women do not cover what must be covered — with no regard for gradualness, or wisdom? That this work is charitable does not mean we may give our feelings free rein and excuse ourselves from a drawn plan, a clear strategy, and knowing the reality on the ground.”
Named interviewHis criticism of callers sent to Africa without preparation. · p. 228
19 / 23
“People do not only need food and aid. People need wisdom in how they are dealt with.”
Reported by one witnessSet down in the biography as the conclusion he drew from sitting with the elders of the villages. · p. 129
20 / 23
“Do not carry our own quarrels and preoccupations from the Arab world across to our African brothers.”
“They have troubles enough of their own to be busy with. Our task is to help them past those — not to export ours, and add to them.”
Reported by one witnessOne of his standing instructions to the workers with him. · p. 241
21 / 23
“O people of relief work: do not only care for the human being — build him.”
Named interviewRecorded in the biography between quotation marks, as a saying of his. · p. 459
22 / 23
“I beg you: care for the human being and build him, and the countries will be built.”
The two lines are one appeal, made in two places.
Named interviewReference biography · p. 460
23 / 23
“No blessing equals clean drinking water. Water is the foundation of life — and so we live inside a blessing we may not feel, since getting it in our age costs us nothing but the turning of a tap.”
Signed by himAl-Kawthar, no. 54, April 2004 — written after watching people die in search of water. · p. 439
