Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I think Islam has been hijacked by the idea that all Muslims are terrorists; that Islam is about hate, about war, about jihad - I think that hijacks the spirituality and beauty that exists within Islam. I believe in allowing Islam to be seen in context and in its entirety and being judged on what it really is, not what you think it is.
Aasif MandviAnti-Islamist Muslims - who wish to live modern lives, unencumbered by burqas, fatwas and violent visions of jihad - are on the defensive and atomized. However eloquent, their individual voices cannot compete with the roar of militant Islam's determination, money (much of it from overseas) and violence. As a result, militant Islam, with its West-phobia and goal of world hegemony, dominates Islam in the West and appears to many to be the only kind of Islam.
Daniel PipesTo the government, terrorism committed by people who happen to be Muslim is not in any way a reflection of legitimate interpretation of Islam. You might find this hard to believe, but if you're doubting any of this, just search your own memory. All the times that we have heard that Islam's a religion of peace and that we can't use the word "terrorism" to describe it and Obama will not use it. And then remember all the times that this administration actually claims that violence by white right-wing white Christians poses a greater threat to the people of America than Islam.
Rush LimbaughThe behavior of the Taliban as well as their extremist attitudes do not correspond in any way with a tolerant Islam. We have always been opposed to extremist tendencies of Islam and we still are. We have not stopped insisting on defending an Islam of tolerance which would be profitable to every Muslim, in Afghanistan and in the whole world, and we will always defend it.
Ahmad Shah MassoudSometimes people have said that Islam, in its own calendar, is still only in the Middle Ages. It's still in the fifteenth century or whatever. And Christianity in the fifteenth century, after all, was full of inquisitions and burnings at the stake, and so on and so on. So give Islam time, and it will reach the point of maturity that other religions have. But Mormonism is much younger than Islam, and it's got there already. So I don't think that's an argument that works.
Salman RushdieI think I came to see Islam, or at least one part of Islam, as an important defense mechanism against the commercialization of the world.
Peter JenningsIslam in the Arab world coexists with Indonesian, Pakistani and Turkish Islam. There is limited solidarity, even within the Arab world.
Walter KasperWe who don't want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.
Ayaan Hirsi AliIslam, as a religion, has been established in France for a long time, and the religious question has been resolved in this country. Islam does not threaten France's future in any way.
Tariq RamadanIt is like using a smoke screen, the same thing for an individual. The topic here is Islam. If French politicians are no longer talking about Islam, they know they will have to talk about something else, which brings the spotlight on their inefficiency. They will have to talk about domestic social and economic issues and they will have to justify their foreign policy, which is obviously something they need to avoid at all costs.
Tariq RamadanI'm a Muslim. I've been a Muslim for 20 years. . . . You know me. I'm a boxer. I've been called the greatest. People recognize me for being a boxer and a man of truth. I wouldn't be here representing Islam if it were terrorist. . . . I think all people should know the truth, come to recognize the truth. Islam is peace.
Muhammad AliI think that rather than condemning Islam, Islam needs to be studied by those who are sincere.
Louis FarrakhanWhenever women protest and ask for their rights, they are silenced with the argument that the laws are justified under Islam. It is an unfounded argument. It is not Islam at fault, but rather the patriarchal culture that uses its own interpretations to justify whatever it wants.
Shirin Ebadi[Mujahedeen], by the way, don't represent Islam in any formal sense. They're not imams or sheiks. They are self-appointed warriors for Islam.
Edward SaidThe jamaat was an almost silly mish-mash of people: Rude Dawudโs pork-pie hat poking up here, a jalab-and-turban there, Jehangirโs big Mohawk rising from a sea of kufis, Amazing Ayyub still with no shirt, girls scattered throughout โ some in hejab, some not and Rabeya in punk-patched burqa doing her thing. But in its randomness it was gorgeous, reflecting an Islam I felt could not happen anywhere else ... If Islam was to be saved, it would be saved by the crazy ones: Jehangir and Rabeya and Fasiq and Dawud and Ayyub and even Umar.
Michael Muhammad KnightThey used Akbar's principles to formulate a version of Islam that could peacefully co-exist with other religions (or so they claimed). An Emperor's Bequest to Islam, their joint 1,300-page doorstopper, spent twenty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover alone. The fact that they remained practicing Muslims (albeit the liberal, wine-guzzling kind) put their message in high international demand.
Manil SuriThe nation of Dubai banned the movie Charlie's Angles because it's "offensive to the religion of Islam." Apparently, the religion of Islam is offended by anything without a plot.
Jon StewartAl-Ghazali is the most important philosophical theologian of classical Islam, and Moderation in Belief is among his most important works. It sets out al-Ghazali's Ash?arite theology with unusual clarity and provides important background for such well-known works as his autobiographical Deliverance from Error and his attack on Avicenna in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. This first English-language translation, with notes that bring out the argumentation and background of the work, is thus very much to be welcomed.
Peter AdamsonWe should be proud that our Prophet came into the world with the message of Islam to change it for the better, and not for the worse, or to keep things as they are.
Abu Bakar BashirThere is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back... No other religion-whethe r secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam-believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.
Timothy KellerIslam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death.
Karen ArmstrongWhen we are clear enough about our own point of view, we can find help in the methods of Eastern Christianity or in the ways of the Far East, perhaps by consulting the I Ching or through mandala contemplation; we may even find help in the ways of shamanism or Islam. If we are clear about where we stand and the direction we must take, such methods may be useful in order to follow our own way to the end.
Morton T. KelseyThat was unfortunate. I should have compared religion with religion and compared Islam not with Trinity College but with Jews, because the number of Jews who have won Nobel Prizes is phenomenally high.
Richard DawkinsReligion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
Salman RushdieWhat King Abdullah of Jordan said is essentially the war against ISIS is a war for the soul of Islam. And it must be Muslim troops on the ground that will destroy ISIS, with the support of a coalition of major powers - U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Russia.
Hillary ClintonSome Westerners [โฆ] have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.
Samuel P. HuntingtonChristianity, Judaism, and Islam all stem from the same Abrahamic roots. All three reject terrorism.
H. John PooleOne time, the Library of Congress was giving books to local libraries around the country on Islam. The library of a guy named Walter Jones, who's a member of Congress from North Carolina, got some books and resource materials, and he got up in the press and said he didn't want any Muslim books in the library. And the people said, "Wait a minute, that's kind of anti-Muslim." He said, "Oh no, Keith Ellison is a friend of mine." And I said, "You know what? We are friends, but you're wrong about this.
Keith EllisonI have nothing against Bosniaks/Islam, but it is the desire to direct political processes that is completely unacceptable.
Milorad DodikWe have different levels of slavery. We've got educational slavery. All the major religions of the world, even Christianity and Islam, are engaged in some form of servitude of people. I don't look favorably on either one although I think properly practiced all religions are basically good.
John Henrik ClarkeIt is for Muslim scholars to study the whole history of Islamic science completely and not only the chapters and periods which influenced Western science. It is also for Muslim scholars to present the tradition of Islamic science from the point of view of Islam itself and not from the point of view of the scientism, rationalism and positivism which have dominated the history of science in the West since the establishment of the discipline in the early part of the 20th century in Europe and America.
Seyyed Hossein NasrI'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?
Irshad ManjiIt seems to me that this debate, whether Islam is a religion of peace or not, really, it's irrelevant for outsiders. It's for Muslims to decide whether it's a religion of peace or not.
Chuck ToddThe word 'Islam' means 'peace.' The word 'Muslim' means 'one who surrenders to God.' But the press makes us seem like haters.
Muhammad AliThough philosophical Hinduism has no other god but God, it cannot be denied that practical Hinduism is not so emphatically uncompromising as Islam.
Mahatma GandhiI think our nation's at war with radical Islam. The primary goal of these groups is to attack our nation. Washington's a prime target.
Lindsey GrahamI'm not an expert on Islam, but I think there are lots of noble religions whose basic principles could stand considerably more observation in the world of business.
John C. BogleI think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.
Kareem Abdul-JabbarI must rebel against the idea that millions of Indians, who were Hindus, the other day, changed their nationality on adopting Islam as their religion.
Mahatma GandhiVerily, I constantly renew my Islam until this very day, as up to now, I do not consider myself to have ever been a good Muslim.
Ibn TaymiyyahIslam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation.
Aga Khan IVMa'alesh; no matter; never mind; what can you do but accept things as they are? Ma'alesh, your pot overturned in the fire; ma'alesh, your prize mare died; ma'alesh, you lost all your possessions and half your family. The word was the everyday essence of Islam - which itself, after all, means "submission.
Laurie R. King