Ibn Hazm Quotes
Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian polymath, jurist, theologian, philosopher, and poet, one of the foremost minds of medieval Islamic Spain. He served briefly as vizier to several caliphs of the declining Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba before withdrawing to a life of scholarship under political disfavor. The quotes below are attributed to Ibn Hazm, organized by topic.
Browse Ibn Hazm by topic
Ibn Hazm on Death
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“May God make us amongst those he allows to do good, and to practice it, and those who see the right path as none of us is without weakness; whosoever sees his weakness will forget those of others. May God make us die in the faith of Muhammad. Amen, Oh Master of the Universes.”
ibn Hazm's style of ending a work, in Salim al-Hassani, Ibn Hazm’s Philosophy and Thoughts on Science
Ibn Hazm on God
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“Compare yourself, for wealth, status and health to those lower than you. For faith, science, and virtue, compare yourself to those who are higher than you.”
Kitab al-Akhlaq wa’l Siyar ; Trsltd by N. Tomiche under the title: Epitre Morale , Collection UNESCO, Beyrouth, 1961, p. 21. -
“I have come across most people- with the exception of those that God most High has protected-they rush into misery, worry, the exhaustion of this world, and amassing terrible sins, that will earn them hell-fire, gaining nothing in pursuing their evil deeds… And they know that their evil intentions will neither fulfill their wishes, nor bring any gains; and that with purer intentions they will obtain great rest for their souls.”
Kitab al-Akhlaq wa’l Siyar p: 17 -
“Blame from a man with a corrupt soul in opposing him, and refraining from evil deeds is better for you than his esteem if you did evil.”
ibid, 22 -
“If you pride yourself with your science, then you must realize that you have no merit; science is a gift that God has granted you. Thus do not acknowledge it in a way that angers the Highest, because he could erase it from your head through an illness of some sort.”
ibid, 83-4
Ibn Hazm on Justice
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“You came to me just before the Christians rang their bells. The half-moon was rising looking like an old man's eyebrow or a delicate instep. And although it was still night when you came a rainbow gleamed on the horizon, showing as many colours as a peacock's tail.”
Poetry | Gómez, translated by Cola Franzen from the Spanish versions of Emilio García (1989)
Ibn Hazm on Knowledge
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Attributed to Ibn Hazm:
“Knowledge is more lasting than wealth, more honorable than office.”
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“كلما نقص العقل توهم صاحبه أنه أوفر الناس عقلا وأكمل ما كان تمييزاً”
The less reason someone has, the more he fancies himself the most rational and most discerning of all. Ibn Hazm (a. 1064). "رسالة في مداواة النفوس وتهذيب الأخلاق والزهد في الرذائل". in ʾIḥsān ʿAbbās. رسائل ابن حزم . volume 1 (second ed.). المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر. 1987. p. 397. -
“M. Asin in Al-Andalus ; 1939; vol IV; p. 278.”
What fixes and preserves a nation’s language, as well as its sciences and its history, is simply the strength of its political power, accompanied by the happy welfare and leisure of its inhabitants. -
“We know with certainty that never could man have acquired the sciences and arts by himself guided only by his natural abilities and without the benefit of instruction. (This applies, e.g., to) medicine, the knowledge of the physiological temperaments, the diseases and their causes, in all their numerous varieties, and the invention of adequate treatment and cure of each of them by drugs or prepara”
Regarding the role of experiment and observation, Ibn Hazm: Kitab al-fisal fi’l-milal wa-l-ahwa wa-l-nihal , 5 parts in two vols; Cairo, 1899 and 1903; Vol I, p. 72. -
“Kitab al-Akhlaq wa’l Siyar p: 17”
I have come across most people- with the exception of those that God most High has protected-they rush into misery, worry, the exhaustion of this world, and amassing terrible sins, that will earn them hell-fire, gaining nothing in pursuing their evil deeds… And they know that their evil intentions will neither fulfill their wishes, nor bring any gains; and that with purer intentions they will obta -
“There is no worse calamity for science and for scholarship than those intruders who are foreign to them. They are ignorant and yet think they know; they ruin everything whilst convinced they are fixing all.”
itab al-Akhlaq wa’l Siyar p: 22
Ibn Hazm on Life
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“Whosoever wishes for happiness in the other life, wisdom in this world, equity in their deeds, having all moral qualities, the practice of all virtues, ought to follow in his deeds the example of Mohammed (PBUH) the Messenger of God.”
ibid. 23
Ibn Hazm on Love
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Attributed to Ibn Hazm:
“Love is friendship's blossom.”
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Attributed to Ibn Hazm:
“There is no heart that has not been broken at some time by love.”
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Attributed to Ibn Hazm:
“The heart's prison is the most painful.”
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“Should the merit of science being fear of the ignorant, and love and honour for the scholars, that alone should encourage striving for it. What then about its other virtues in this world and the other.”
ibid, 19
Ibn Hazm on Mind
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“The less reason someone has, the more he fancies himself the most rational and most discerning of all. Ibn Hazm (a. 1064). "رسالة في مداواة النفوس وتهذيب الأخلاق والزهد في الرذائل". in ʾIḥsān ʿAbbās. رسائل ابن حزم . volume 1 (second ed.). المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر. 1987. p. 397.”
كلما نقص العقل توهم صاحبه أنه أوفر الناس عقلا وأكمل ما كان تمييزاً -
“Sciences are like powerful drugs, which suit the strong and exhaust the weak. Likewise, complex sciences enrich a vigorous mind, and keep it off evil, but exhaust the mediocre mind.”
ibid -
“The less reason someone has, the more he fancies himself the most rational and most discerning of all.”
Ibn Hazm (a. 1064). "رسالة في مداواة النفوس وتهذيب الأخلاق والزهد في الرذائل". in ʾIḥsān ʿAbbās. رسائل ابن حزم . volume 1 (second ed.). المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر. 1987. p. 397. -
“ibn Hazm's style of ending a work, in Salim al-Hassani, Ibn Hazm’s Philosophy and Thoughts on Science”
Wikiquote
Ibn Hazm on Nature
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“The Earth is spherical despite what is popularly believed … the proof is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth.”
ibid, vol 2 p. 98 -
“Whosoever has a natural leaning towards a science, even if it was less noble than another, should not abandon it for the other because if he did he would be like someone who would be growing coconuts in al-Andalus and olive trees in India, crops that would never fructify.”
ibid, 21
Ibn Hazm on Politics
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“What fixes and preserves a nation’s language, as well as its sciences and its history, is simply the strength of its political power, accompanied by the happy welfare and leisure of its inhabitants.”
M. Asin in Al-Andalus ; 1939; vol IV; p. 278.
Ibn Hazm on Truth
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Attributed to Ibn Hazm:
“The proper philosopher follows the evidence wherever it leads.”
Ibn Hazm on Virtue
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“Whoever harms his kinship and his neighbors is worse than them. Whosoever returns ill that he receives from them is like them. Whosoever does not return ill done to him is the master, the best and most virtuous amongst all.”
ibid, 18