I don't have the power to issue papal decrees.

If you take a child and you throw the child up there is a point where you see this, they go into this state of complete panic and then when they come back to your arms they are laughing. That is dunya, I guarantee you, that moment, that is your life, you came from God and you are going back to God and there is just a moment when you are in a complete state of panic but just relax, you are in good hands. Just relax.

In the Communist period, the revolutionaries, the leaders were almost always - Che Guevara, people like that - they were always from the middle class and the educated. And empathy is a very powerful emotion.

The vast majority of Muslims would never accept the lawfulness of an active homosexual lifestyle. I don't see that happening. But there is also no authority in the tradition for any individual to take things into his own hands and impose their version of the religion on someone else.

Everything that we do has a spiritual essence. There is a spiritual dimension in everything. All of life has meaning and everything that you do in life is in preparation for your great meeting. This great meeting is your meeting with your Lord, which is absolutely inevitable.

Islam is based on naql (texts) and ‘aql (intellect). Some people just have the texts – we call them naql-heads.

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong thing, you make the wrong act permanent.