Belief in one god, praying, charity, the five pillars, ethical moral objectives and messages in the Koran, the history of Islam. There are basic tenants in Islam that we universally believe in but I think it's very naive to think that Sharia, that legal rulings are derived in a vacuum, that people do not bring their own histories and politics and social pledges to bear when they interpret the Koran.

If as we accept God is the perfect epitome of justice, mercy, goodness, and compassion, then our efforts to define the divine will through Sharia should be predicated on achieving a result that is merciful compassionate.

When you say Sharia, even to a Muslim, it's understood in vastly different ways, in many ways it's part of an identity and most Muslims when they talk about wanting Sharia to play a role in their lives really mean it in so far as it talks about family law, you know, issues like, as I said marriage, divorce.

Speaking as a Muslim in the West, I see a crisis in religious authority, we need Indigenous Muslim scholarship understanding the Western way of life and is able to use the understanding, using legitimate Islamic sources to bring more scholarship to our way of life in the west. There's a need for that.

Islam has values, following the Koran and the example of Mohammed and they form people very profoundly and for some Muslims it creates a vision of a very different society and a hope it will be established.

One of the reasons why people in the west are nervous is they are reading the Koran, and the life of Mohammed and he is a prophet that declared he was victorious through terror and that is disturbing to people.

Multiculturalism is only in the West. We are absorbing a large number of Muslims in the west and at the same time the Christians and the Jews and other minorities are fleeing the Middle East, churches are being burnt, nobody is talking about it. Where are the religious freedom of the minorities.