Top 37 Leila Aboulela Quotes
#1. I'm not middle-class; I do not have a degree. I am upper-class without money.
Leila Aboulela
#2. 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
#3. That's what religion teaches: that life is a temporary thing which is going to dissolve one day.
Leila Aboulela
#4. My faith was started off by my grandmother and mother, and so I always saw it as a very private, personal thing.
Leila Aboulela
#5. 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
#6. 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
#7. I like talking to you,' he said, slowly.
'Why?' That was the way to hear nice things. Ask why.
Leila Aboulela
#8. I wanted to be good but I wasn't sure if I was prepared
Leila Aboulela
#9. 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
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. 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
#13. My father married out of the family. I also married outside the family.
Leila Aboulela
#14. 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
#15. 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
#16. Words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction.
Leila Aboulela
#17. Control yourself, it is not worth it. You will regret your rudeness afterwards, your sensitive nature will be troubled
Leila Aboulela
#18. 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
#19. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, When Allah loves a people, He tries them.
Leila Aboulela
#20. 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
#21. Sudan is not Arab enough for Arabs and not African enough for Africans.
Leila Aboulela
#22. 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
#23. 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
#24. 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
#25. All my life I had been living. How to imagine any other state?
Leila Aboulela
#26. 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
#28. The blow, inevitable in itself, comes straight from the source without any intermediaries.
Leila Aboulela
#32. 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
#33. The coverage of Islam in the media is becoming more sophisticated, and there is more access to knowledge.
Leila Aboulela
#34. 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
#35. 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
#36. My characters are not role-model Muslims, but they struggle to make choices using Muslim logic.
Leila Aboulela
#37. 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
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