Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas Quotes

#1. But the philosophical and scientific process which I call 'secularization' necessarily involves the divesting of spiritual meaning from the world of nature; the desacralization of politics from human affairs; and the deconsecration of values from the human mind and conduct.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#2. The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) ... to establish a superior library reflecting the religious and intellectual traditions both of the Islamic and Western civilizations.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#3. Justice and injustice indeed begins and ends with the self.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#4. Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to 'repay' his debt, 'his own consciousness' of the fact 'that he is himself the very substance' of debt, so must he 'repay' with himself, so must he 'return' himself to Him Who owns him absolutely.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#5. To know how to put what knowledge in which place is wisdom (hikmah). Otherwise, knowledge without order and seeking it without discipline does lead to confusion and hence to injustice to one's self.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#6. Today I meet with Dr. Syamsuddin Arif. He said Prof. al-Attas says, I don't read much but I think a lot

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#7. The secularizing 'values' and events that have been predicted would happen in the Muslim world have now begun to unfold with increasing momentum and persistence due still to the Muslims' lack of understanding of the true nature and implications of secularization as a philosophical program.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#8. Justice implies knowledge of the right and proper place for a thing or a being to be; of right as against wrong; of the mean and limit; of spiritual gain as against loss; of truth as against falsehood.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#9. Man is like an island set in isolation in a fathomless sea enveloped by darkness, saying that the loneliness his self knows is so utterly absolute because even he knows not his self completely.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#10. Islam is a religion based upon knowledge, and a denial of the possibility and objectivity of knowledge would involve the destruction of the fundamental basis upon which not only the religion, but all the sciences are rooted.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas