Tariq Ramadan Quotes

Only in the crucible of self-mastery can freedom be smelted

Humility is knowing that you can get an answer from anybody: be it a child, another person, or nature.

If you are only concerned with international issues and/or the power of some lobbies that are influencing American policy, then you are isolating yourselves. You are powerless in your mind when you don't understand the meaning and quality of your own real power.

Being Muslim has become synonymous with pointed questions, with tension and mistrust, even with conflict. It has become a global phenomenon with profound consequences for inter-communal relations, political rhetoric and policies at the local, regional, national and international level.

While criticism of Israel is legitimate and justifiable, it cannot be an excuse - in any way, shape or form - for anti-Semitism.

No one can deny that some Islamist groups have credential and popularity. But that does not mean they are a majority. If we are serious about democracy we cannot blame the people for choosing what they want. We must promote the kinds of procedures and processes that are helping the people move ahead.

Nature is telling us that if you don't respect the environment then you are living with artificial needs and a consumerism that is destroying the very conditions we need to survive.

Unsettled Middle East, in these times where the people are trying to find their way towards democracy, could be interesting for many reasons - for weapons to be sold, for new geostrategic interests to be protected, and something that we are not talking about, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The people who are lost in the whole discussion here are the Palestinians. We have demonstrations in Palestine in West Bank. Nobody is covering this. It's as if they don't exist anymore. And this is, in fact, central. And Israel is silent.

I don't think we should take the emotional reactions of a few people as more representative than those of the millions of people who took to the street in a non-violent way against dictators.

Shaking up whole region means that Israel needs the US for its safety and military camps are "flourishing" everywhere in the Middle East. It has been said that Barack Obama is less interested in the Middle East. I don't think so. This mess has been created and maintained. Maybe the US is pretending to be less interested, however, it allows them to take their power back when it comes to security.

The process of reclaiming the self is one of reconciliation with meaning.

If you do not have boundaries, you do not have a path.

Politics is mainly about interests. As Muslim citizens, we understand these interests but we should put principles and dignity beyond everything.

Still I have been invited I don't know how many times to Turkey, where Turkey has been following very quickly in the footsteps of what is sometimes referred to as the movement of cyber-dissidents. They have been training young people and also encouraging them to come into contact with western Muslims.

In my book, the Arab Awakening, I talk about the fact that we have to move from this. All the contemporary ideologies of political Islam have been based on the nation state. The nation state is very problematic but I'm not sure if we have an alternative political model.

Unfortunately there are some trends that are changing this but you don't have for example as strict and narrow understanding of the relationship between men and women. And then there is the philosophy we have to extract in the relationship between text and culture.

Your country needs religious leaders and religious politicians

I have never, so far, in all the studies I have done, met a contradiction between what the human, experimental and natural sciences are telling us and the Islamic rules. In fact, the opposite is true: anything that is coming from the modern sciences is helping me better understand the text. It's not a contradiction. It's a relation.

The philosophy of fasting calls upon us to know ourselves, to master ourselves, and to discipline ourselves the better to free ourselves. To fast is to identify our dependencies, and free ourselves from them.

I wouldn't call it naive but silly. History does not work like this. If you look at the dynamics of Eastern Europe or even Germany post reunification, you realize that change takes time. No one can deny the fact that we are still not there - I am advocating something which has to go from uprisings to revolutions. It is not coming straight away that it is not going to come but what we have to advocate is that the democratization process is always better than state dictatorship.

No one must ever let power or social, economic, or political interest turn him or her away from other human beings, from the attention they deserve and the respect they are entitled to. nothing must ever lead to a person to compromise this principle or faith in favor of a political strategy aimed at saving or protecting a community from some peril. The freely offered, sincere heart of a poor, powerless individual is worth a thousand times more in the sight of God than the assiduously courted, self-interested heart of a rich one.

There is the philosophy embedded in the culture we are living. It is quite clear for example that Arabs have a different culture than Malaysians.

Nevertheless, I have no political agenda whatsoever, even though some might think the contrary.

In Ramadan, you should eat less and think more.

Very often when I see people who are perceived to be, or who call themselves progressives, sometimes I see an imbalance. Yes I understand the courage in their mind but I don't see the spirituality in their heart, good you are questioning the limits, but what about yourself, are you also liberating yourself?

To be more precise, it's ethics and liberation, and as a consequence there is an ethics of liberation.

The strength of democratic societies relies on their capacity to know how to stand firm against extremism while respecting justice in the means used to fight terrorism.

Even after the whole democratization process, it's quite clear that the United States are not seen in a positive way in all the Muslim-majority countries - in Egypt, in Libya, even in Tunisia - even though we have now a kind of trying to be recognized as democrats by the Islamists who are running, you know, Tunisia and Egypt. But the popular sentiment is very, very negative.

Very often we talk about India and China, but not really Malaysia and Indonesia. The potential in the shift to the East is going to be great and very important for this country.

I'm not talking about reforming #Islam..it is to reform the #Muslim minds & the Muslim understandings of the texts.

If you look at how we are destroying and disrespecting Creation it is obvious that is something is not clear in our understanding. We overemphasize rules but we don't understand the objective.

Having traveled a lot and met people from different horizons it makes you more humble and ready to listen.

If there is a smoke, there is a fire, the saying goes, That is quite true, but one should find what the fire is, and who lit it.

Teach the heart not to give way to proud emotions and arrogant thinking; bring the mind to heart-soothing solutions that make it possible to control oneself gently and wisely.

Intellect is a part of a good faith. Intellect is the light, the heart is the direction.

There is great potential and deep fragility [in Malaysia] that can be used by any group that stresses on religion, pushing towards Islam, rejecting people and alienating migrants - anything can be used to win the next elections. So these are the signs of fragility that is very much there.

In the Muslim-majority countries you can't do without Islam, we can't do without their culture, in which way they are going to come back to this Islamic reference to find a way to deal with the true challenges and not the superficial political questions.

The link between domestic policy and international affairs is essential: We cannot say we care about domestic issues and we leave international politics, and the opposite is wrong as well. Both are connected and should be addressed together.

To be courageous is to be a voice for the voiceless

The fact that this organisation is called the Islamic State reveals something even deeper. In fact, it implies that every single Islamist party in Egypt, Iraq or Tunisia are not really representing Islam and Muslim people. Nowadays, political Islam is going through a crisis, however this crisis is necessary, for it will lead to a changing way of thinking. In order to make it out of this dead-end, reviewing political Islam becomes mandatory.

Globalisation means indeed everything is global but there are still very specific centres of power, especially when it comes to media and news.Misinformation about some attacks is going to affect how emotionally involved the audience is going to get. In the end, an emotional ranking is artificially created when it comes to casualties.

I am too old to think that numbers are creating change

There are certain things that we cannot understand, like why we pray five times a day, for example. But the fact that we choose to pray is understandable.

One does not always know how to express the sorrow of the soul. One does not always know how to silence the joy of the heart.

The only way to resist colonialism is through education.

To live is to love,to serve, to forgive. Love the One, love and serve humanity. To learn to love oneself and to love is to learn to forgive

The collective psychology is something very close to being sacred - we can do it but we don't do it. We should understand that the Holocaust in the European conscience is reaching a point which is very close to what is sacred for people in the Southern countries, whether they are Muslims or not. Because of that we need to try to have intellectual empathy.

We have to be the media when media is silent