The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will - that is really naive.

Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.

Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.

I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.

My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.

Every time I went on TV I got a threat.