Was the saying, "Whoever dedicates himself to the service of his religion will live wearily, but will live great, die great, and be resurrected great; and living for the sake of Allah is harder than dying for the sake of Allah," correctly attributed to Sheikh Ibn Baz, and is there anything in it that contradicts sound Islamic principles?

The originator of the phrase, "Life for the sake of Allah is harder than death for the sake of Allah," has not been identified. However, Sayyid Qutb made similar statements in "Fi Zilal al-Qur'an."

The meaning of the phrase does not diminish the importance of jihad. Rather, it refers to a life of sincere uprightness in accordance with Allah's will, which is the highest rank of Siddiqiya (truthfulness), second only to prophethood, as indicated by Allah's saying: "And whoever obeys Allah and the Messenger - those will be with the ones upon whom Allah has bestowed favor of the prophets, the steadfast affirmers of truth [Siddiqin], the martyrs [shuhada'], and the righteous [salihin]. And excellent are those as companions!" (Quran 4:69).

This does not diminish the virtue of martyrs. An example of this is the hadith (definition) about the two men from Bali, which illustrates that the one who lived a year longer than his companion, the martyr, and then reached Ramadan (definition), fasted, and prayed, had a difference in virtue between him and the martyr that was greater than the distance between the heaven and the earth. This is not a minimization of the importance of jihad and martyrdom.