I had no intention to cover my tracks since I am not a politician and I do not represent anybody.

Modesty is the way you deal with beauty not the way you avoid it.

Populism is everywhere. We have religious populism in the Muslim-majority countries as much as we have populism in the United States of America.

In fact all the Islamists, that is the reformists not the Salafis, now they all say that they want a civil state, a civil state with Islamic reference points. They are not talking about an Islamic state, or sharia in the way this was once understood in the fight against the colonisers, or just afterwards in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

To those who say "Sufism is apolitical" or "no politics," I respond: "No politics is politics." Look at the very old African Sufi tradition, the Asian Sufi tradition, or the North African Sufi tradition. Then you get it and understand what Sufism is all about wisdom, courage and resistance.

We need more citizens that are committed and courageous.

We integrate the good wherever we find it.