For many, embracing the ideology of Osama bin Laden or ISIS allowed them to become the heroes of their own story as well as actors in a cosmic crusade. For others, a ‘cognitive opening’ to militant Islam was often precipitated by a personal disappointment or loss.
I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It’s important for North African writers to show they have other things to say.
I believe that Islam is a faith of progress and welfare.
Orthodox Islam, like orthodox interpretations of the other Abrahamic faiths, views homosexuality as sinful and usually defines marriage as only ever a heterosexual union. This isn’t to say that there is no debate on the subject.
Islam was hijacked on that September 11, 2001, on that plane, as an innocent victim.
I can bear my own sorrows, but the sorrows arising from the calamities visiting Islam and Muslims have crushed me. I feel each blow delivered to the Muslim world as delivered first to my own heart.
The West is in for a long, irregular confrontation – not with terrorism, which is simply a tactic, but with radical Islam.
If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.
Rather than being a ‘perversion’ of Islam, it is truer to say that the version of Islam espoused by ISIS, while undoubtedly the worst possible interpretation of Islam, and for Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere obviously the most destructive version of Islam, is nevertheless a plausible interpretation of Islam.
My father, in 1952, just in his 20s, my father became the chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam. From 1952 to 1959, there were four temples. My father was responsible and credited for having maximized this membership. From four temples to 50 temples, there was so much work involved.
In early Islam, it was an absolute tenet that the prophet was not to be worshipped. The prophet was a messenger. And one of the things that’s happened in Islam is this cult of the prophet, which to my view is counter to the original tradition.
The Dutch are still allowed to speak critically about Islam, and resistance against Islamization is not a crime.
Throughout its history, Islam has borrowed and adapted from other civilizations, both ancient and modern.
EXMNA is a nonprofit that provides support to individuals who have left Islam.
After America won the Cold War, some believed we had come to the ‘end of history,’ and budget-cutters celebrated the so-called ‘peace dividend.’ As a result, we ignored the toxic mixture of militant Islam and terror that ultimately led to 9/11.
However, those who have used those words use half the sentence to fit their purpose, which, of course, I believe is to discredit me and the new Nation of Islam that has come up around me.
There is far more misunderstanding of Islam than there is, I think, of the other religions of the world. So many things are said of it by those who do not belong to that faith.
Allah says in the Qur’an not to despise one another. So the criterion in Islam is not color or social status. It’s who is most righteous. If I go to a mosque – and I’m a basketball player with money and prestige – if I go to a mosque and see an imam, I feel inferior. He’s better than me. It’s about knowledge.
Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar.
Most Muslims do not ‘choose’ Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion.
Many Muslims consider the United States hostile to Islam and to Arab interests. In fact, the United States saved tens of thousands of Muslims in the Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?
We invite our friends who hold high positions in the legislative branch of government and state institutions to master the skills of administration, so they could, when the time comes, reform the Turkish state and make it more fruitful at all its levels in the name of Islam.
We represent the moderate teachings and principles of Islam.
On Islam, it is true that I am tough. Perhaps tougher than I should be if my only aim was to get votes.
There’s no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity. This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does.
I was raised as a Catholic and as an Ismaili. My father felt that I should have some training in Islam, but my mother was a Catholic, so really, I was raised with both.
In Islam, we believe Jesus is a prophet and respect him and follow his teachings and put him beside the Prophet Muhammad – a lot of people don’t know that.
If my children do not behave according to Islam, if they do not pray for instance, I will punish them.
The fundamental question I believe is, ‘Is political Islam in our best interest?’ If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?
Our enemy is not Islam. Islam is not the enemy of America; Americans are not the enemy of Islam. Our real enemy is extremism and radicalism.
Personality cults are an insult to Islam.
Because Islam in its original form was tough and hard, not weak and pliable.
Many spiritual teachers – in Buddhism, in Islam – have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.
The problem is that those of us who were born into Islam and who don’t want to live according to scripture – we don’t have what the Jews have, which is a rabbinical tradition that allows you to ask questions. We also don’t have the church tradition that the Christians have.
Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable.
Any attempt to single out Islam would be a violation of the Constitution.
I grew up in Jerusalem and went to school here. I studied at the Hebrew University – mostly Islam and Arabic: Arab literature, Arab poetry and culture, because I felt like we are living in this region, in the Middle East, and we are not alone: There are nations here whose culture is Arab.
The idea is that they wouldn’t want to deal with militant Islam but an Islam and Muslims who are committed to progress, committed to development, who like peace and are moderate in their ways. So that’s what we are doing here.
The French have a very deep knowledge of Islam in many areas, and we can exchange views.
ISIL is not ‘radical Islam.’ Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Muslim Brotherhood – these are radical Islamic groups. They resort to armed struggle and terrorism to move toward their goals. But they are also deeply political organizations that have internal rules, standards, and codes of conduct.
We want Austrian-style Islam, not one controlled by other states.
There are too many people sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully and finding out how we can infiltrate them.
It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam.
We are in a conflict, whether we like it or not. I think we have to identify the enemy and call it by its name. And the enemy is an ideology rooted in militant Islam.
Exposing Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam’s wicked radicalization of black American males must become a key component of our national education.
If you’re someone who doesn’t have Muslim friends, and your only experience of Islam is what you see on the news – the angry man with a beard doing or saying something terrible – then you may inadvertently associate that with Islam and think that is what it’s all about.
I’m a person of faith, and the language that I use to define my faith, the symbols and metaphors that I rely upon to express my faith, are those provided by Islam because they make the most sense to me.
Islam is, to be sure, a big tent, and the one and a half billion Muslims in the world run the gamut from mystical, moderate, pacific Sufis to Salafists.
Islamists and their sympathizers hate us, and they will not stop hating us until we convert to ancient Islam. There is no middle ground or accommodation.
Yes, women should be free to cover their faces when walking down the street. But in our schools, hospitals, airports, banks and civil institutions, it is not unreasonable – nor contrary to the teachings of Islam – to expect women to show the one thing that allows the rest of us to identify them… namely, their face.
The contribution of Islam to history and modern civilization is the product of the efforts of peoples of many races and tongues which came to accept its way of life.
Ramadan is an important part of Islam, and when you are observing it, God is happy with you and you have to have a big celebration.
