As a result of that, America desires a moderate Islam; an Islam that America can control; an Islam that America can give direction to and give orders to its leaders.
The Left wants Islam not only tolerated across the globe but invited and welcomed inside the gates and into our schools, our entertainment, our military our legislatures, and yes, the White House.
Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.
The Bush administration does not desire to see Islam practiced in its pristine purity.
My aim is to show that those governments that violate the rights of people by invoking the name of Islam have been misusing Islam.
The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea, as an idea. And about Hamas as an organization, of course, the Hamas leadership, including my father, they’re responsible; they’re responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization.
I never was in the Nation of Islam… I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, ’cause it’s just me and God. You know, going to the mosque, the ritual and the tradition, it’s just not in me to do. So I don’t do it.
I believe Islam was truly spread by example. So whatever good a Muslim does publicly will be seen – the same is true for the bad.
Our socialism does not include extreme materialistic concepts, since Indonesia is primarily a God-fearing, God-loving nation. Our socialism is a mixture. We draw political equality from the American Declaration of Independence. We draw spiritual equality from Islam and Christianity. We draw scientific equality from Marx.
My career divides in two: before and after 9/11. In the first part I was trying to show that Islam is relevant to political concerns. If you want to understand Muslims, I argued, you need to understand the role of Islam in their lives. Now that seems obvious.
When leading evangelicals say terrible things about Islam, evil things about Islam, terrible things about Muhammad, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Early Islam was a time of great creativity. Scholars excelled in sciences and literature. Our religion should not be a shield behind which we hide from the world but a driving force that inspires us to innovate and contribute to our surroundings. This is the true spirit of Islam.
I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.
We have a toxic ideology, hopefully very small, within Islam; certainly most people, most Muslims, don’t agree with this violent, jihadist approach.
It is the duty of the followers of Islam to spread through the civilised world, a knowledge of what Islam means – its spirit and message.
What’s right with America and what’s right with Islam have a lot in common. At their highest levels, both worldviews reflect an enlightened recognition that all of humankind shares a common Creator – that we are, indeed, brothers and sisters.
The mistake of the West was to put the Sauds on the throne of Saudi Arabia and give them control of the world’s oil fortune, which they then used to propagate Wahhabi Islam.
The Arab spring confirmed that peaceful change is possible and so reinforced the vision of political Islam. The impact of this went beyond the Brotherhood to include the Salafist tendency in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya that had questioned the democratic path.
A hedonistic lifestyle contrary to all the rules and expectations of Islam is not an unusual precursor to radicalisation: in fact, some young radicals see joining in the jihad as a way of achieving redemption for past sins.
Let me say this loud and clear. There is a world of difference between terrorist acts and the Islamic Shari’a. Islam is not only a religion, but a way of life. And at its heart lie the sacred principles of tolerance and dialogue.
The role of religions in the domination and destruction of African civilizations was ruthless… Islam was as guilty as all the rest.
As a supporter of secularism, I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.
I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.
Al-Qa’ida seeks to portray America as an enemy of the world’s Muslims. But President Obama has made it clear that the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
Islam, for example, like so many other faiths, stresses the importance of mutual solidarity with our fellow man.
The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong.
The world does not have an Islam problem; the world has a dignity problem.
Jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.
All we’re doing is going back to what we were: a moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world and to all traditions and people.
It is this desire to see civil society remain a strong and united force within the U.K. that has encouraged me to chair Citizens U.K. Commission on Islam, Participation and Public Life.
Respecting other people’s cultures is well and good, but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam, what they do to women. It’s indefensible.
There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there, particularly in the difference between religion and culture. For example, I hear people criticise Islam for arranged marriages, but that’s nothing to do with Islam. It is the culture in some places, but it’s actually against Islam.
Isis want to destroy the knowledge that Islam is a beautiful, scientific and intelligent culture, and we are way ahead of them.
In the U.S., the FBI or the people I met from the Department of Justice might be ignorant about Islam or about the East more generally, but I felt they were less willing to make blanket judgments about Muslims. This caution was less evident with some of the authorities I met in India.
I became, suddenly, not just a Muslim in faith. I became a Muslim in politics. Somebody whose politics were pre-defined by one interpretation of Islam.
We have religious freedom – which is important. But we want everyone in our country to respect our laws, and our laws on Islam say it is not acceptable to have influence abroad on the Muslim community in Austria, and it is not acceptable that Islamic organizations or imams are financed from abroad.
There is not a single Muslim leader today who has the courage and commitment to defend Islam and Muslims, they are all in awe of the United States and other Western powers, and are indebted to them.
Once enough Americans reacquaint themselves with Americanism, we should promote it to all countries just as the Left promotes leftism and Muslims promote Islam. One need not be American to affirm Americanism.
The obstacle for us is not Islam, but the bureaucrats in Brussels.
The clash of civilizations or the clash between Islam and the West may be cliches. But there is an even bigger cliche around: that this clash actually goes on within Islam, between reformists and fanatics.
To claim that ISIS is Islamic is egregiously inaccurate and empirically unsustainable, not to mention insulting to the 1.6 billion non-violent adherents of Islam across the planet.
We have a problem with political Islam in Austria.
Chechens are Muslim, and some share the belief that the West is engaged in a global campaign against Islam.
Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems.
Hamas murders not only Israelis, but also Palestinians whose political stance is different from that which its group promotes; that is, its radical religious outlook in which Islam is the solution to the world’s problems.
In Britain, Christianity is dying. Islam, unfortunately, isn’t.
Well, today, we are in the struggle brought on to us by the terrorists of Islam. It is a war that we did not choose. It was a war that was declared against us as Americans, against our people, against our Constitution.
I never was in the Nation of Islam… I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, ’cause it’s just me and God.
The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it’s Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.
I did not lose this election, or had a bad result compared with what we might have got because of Islam.
I don’t have the sort of temperament that submits to Christianity or Islam.
I can’t talk about Christianity if I don’t know it. You can’t talk about Muslims or Islam if you don’t know it.
Islam is misunderstood by many. The extremists grab the headlines; those of us who want to practise our religion and live under this country’s laws do not make the news.
Throughout the past, there has been a lack of intimacy, affection, and regard for Islam by Christianity. This, to a large extent, has been due to a lack of knowledge of the great human and spiritual ideals for which Islam and the teachings of Islam stand.
