I read, read enormously on all different fields of Islamic thought, from philosophy to Islamic literature, poetry, exegeses, knowledge of the Hadith, the teachings of the prophet. That's how I trained myself. And then I was appointed imam by a Sufi master from Istanbul, Turkey.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

My mother's belief in spiritual healers grew stronger after our family went through a rough patch following my father's death. Sufi saint Karimullah Shah Kadri changed our lives, and all of us converted to Sufism. But it wasn't an instantaneous decision - it took us 10 years to convert. The change in religion was like washing away the past.

A. R. Rahman

I'm a Sufi Muslim, I would say. I believe in using the medium to create a good vibration because art is so important to society. Some projects I don't do because I feel that it's going to create a bad vibe. I don't do propaganda films that are anti another religion, anti-Muslim or anti-Hindu.

A. R. Rahman

Sufis were always spreading love with their music, and if some kind of extremism is a threat to it, it is a threat to all humanity.

Adnan Sami

When I was a boy in Desuq, Egypt, a city on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 50 miles east of Alexandria, my family lived steps away from the local landmark, a mosque named for a 13th-century Sufi sheik.

Ahmed Zewail

The Marathi film 'Natrang' has amazing songs. I also like and have sufi and folk music.

Amruta Khanvilkar

Gonjasufi may sound at first like a rambling hip-hop crackpot, but there's more to the California rapper and singer than mere eccentricity: What appears messy and thrown together is anything but.

Anthony Fantano

As a teen, I enjoyed Sufi music and ghazals the most. But as my career began, I drifted off to playback and other streams over the years.

Chinmayi

I read, read enormously on all different fields of Islamic thought, from philosophy to Islamic literature, poetry, exegeses, knowledge of the Hadith, the teachings of the prophet. That's how I trained myself. And then I was appointed imam by a Sufi master from Istanbul, Turkey.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I consider myself an ordinary Muslim who is constantly working to put himself in the framework established by the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed. I study the works of experts of jurisprudence, Koranic commentary, hadith commentary, and Sufism.

Fethullah Gulen

The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to this propensity by soft-pedaling Hinduism's, Buddhism's, Sufism's rules.

Huston Smith

There are many similarities between Sai Baba and me. He believed there is only one God, and so do I. He loved Sufi music; so do I.

Jackie Shroff

Sufi music talks about connecting people. It talks about connecting hearts and connecting man with God. Everything that talks about connection is Sufi.

Javed Ali

I have got a lot of appreciation from people and they really like my voice in Sufi songs, so I will continue with that, but I'm also experimenting with other types of songs.

Javed Ali

Some of my fans tell me that my voice is more suited for romantic numbers, some others say I do Sufi songs better. But that just goes to say that people are more aware of the different genres now. More people are getting exposed to sufi music because of Bollywood, which is good.

Javed Ali

When I talk of primordial innocence, I hear it in Sufi music with the nay flute. I see it in Coptic icons, in most traditional art, particularly art of the American Indian. I find the texts extraordinarily beautiful and very childlike and very simple. I've been particularly interested in American Indian texts.

John Tavener

Hildegard von Bingen conveys spiritual ecstasy, if we're talking of Western music. What bothers me about Western music is that it doesn't have an esoteric dimension in the way the music of the East has, whether it be Byzantine chant, the music of the Sufis, or Hindu music.

John Tavener

The thing the Buddhists and the Sufis have in common is a belief that religious certainties are destructive.

Luke Rhinehart

Sufi poetry is, in a sense, self-help poetry about how to live a decent life, how to deal with your mortality.

Mohsin Hamid

In Sufi terms, there are two very interesting notions of transcendence. One is to gaze out at the universe and to comprehend that what you see out there reflects what you are. The other one is to look inside yourself and recognise that the universe is present there.

Mohsin Hamid