Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 131
ISIS is not Islam. No, I'm not saying that. The government says that. The left, the media says it. ISIS is not Islam. You've heard Obama say that. ISIS is making a mockery of Islam. In fact, what you really need to understand about the way our government looks at Islam, they look at Islam as anti-terror as well. Islam is anti-terrorism. Therefore, no terrorism can actually be Islamic.
Rush Limbaugh300 years after the rise of Islam there were Zoroastrians in Iran. The Muslim armies never forced people to accept Islam. It was only within Arabia that God ordered the idolaters to have a choice of either embracing Islam or fight against Muslims, because He wanted to remove this terrible idolatry that exited there. But outside Arabia where Islam met Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Hindus, they were given a choice by and large. That's why many Christians and Jewish communities survived in the Muslim world, but gradually many of them embraced Islam for different reasons.
Seyyed Hossein NasrIs Islam a tribe or is it a force of globalization? Islam has certainly been studied as a local, tribalistic phenomenon. But Islam is also theoretically a universalist idea, its spread has been facilitated by modern technologies, and it's an identity that people can slip into and out of fairly easily. I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.
Franklin FoerWhen I was in the US, I felt that the discourse there surrounding Muslims as the other, problematising Muslims and Islam as the other was very similar to what we find in Australia, which is that the image of Islam is a constructed image in the West. We are starting from a point of view that Islam and Muslims - well Islam is a violent, misogynistic, hateful religion and that is where the debate always starts from - that presumption underlies the discourse.
Reza AslanEven the Islam stuff I thought was pretty respectful about Islam in a funny way. I mean, yes, from a secular point of view, but it talks about the birth of this religion, and I thought it was pretty admiring of the person at the center of it, the prophet of Islam.
Salman RushdieIslam cannot accept or agree to a situation which is half-Islam and half-Jahiliyya [separated from God].
Sayyid QutbIn 1985, a group of mujahedeen came to Washington and was greeted by President Reagan, who called them "freedom fighters." These people, 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 SaidWe have the deepest respect and reverence for Islam and all who share the faith of Islam.
Jimmy CarterBelief 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.
Mark DurieWhat we argue in the piece is that the headscarf has become a political symbol for an ideology of Islam that is exported to the world by the theocracies of the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Just like the Catholic Church in the 17th century did religious propaganda to challenge the Protestant Reformation, these ideologies are trying to define the way Muslims express Islam in the world.
Asra NomaniI 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 JenningsIt is difficult to generalize about Islam. To begin with, the word itself is commonly used with two related but distinct meanings, as the equivalents both of Christianity, and Christendom. In the one sense, it denotes a religion, as system of beliefs and worship; in the other, the civilization that grew up and flourished under the aegis of that religion. The word Islam thus denotes more than fourteen centuries of history, a billion and a third people, and a religious and cultural tradition of enormous diversity.
Bernard LewisThere is only one Islam, and that is a totalitarian ideology that has no room for anything but Islam.
Geert WildersIt 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 RamadanIn Turkey religion not only affects society but is affected by it, which is why Turkish Islam differs from Arab Islam. It's a more modern, more rational, more self-confident society.
Andrew MangoThe Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the "book" - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.
Greg MortensonFor Hindus to expect Islam, Christianity or Zoroastrianism to be driven out of India is as idle a dream as it would be for Mussalmans to have only Islam of their imagination rule the world.
Mahatma GandhiInfuriatingly stupid analysts - especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world - wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew.
Ayaan Hirsi AliAll Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith - face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon love, not hate.
George W. BushIf we cling to the institution of Islam, then we tend to defend it against whatever we see as a danger to it, so because of this we see now that many people are defending states, defending territories, defending everything institutional in the belief that they defend Islam.
Abdurrahman WahidLook at Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution and the slogans that they used: anti-imperialism; anti-colonialism; the struggle of the have-nots against the haves; the state monopoly over economy, which was very much patterned after the Soviet Union. All of these things did not come out of Islam. Islam is not that developed.
Azar NafisiAfter Iraq, there's been Libya, there's Syria, and the rhetoric of, you know, democracy versus radical Islam. When you look at the countries that were attacked, none of them were Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalist countries. Those ones are supported, financed by the U.S., so there is a real collusion between radical Islam and capitalism. What is going on is really a different kind of battle.
Arundhati RoyThey 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 StewartThe difference must be distinguished between worship and respect. Islam orders you to obey and respect, as long as you are not worshiping anything other than God... Islam is a religion of peace. You don't attack. You explain.
Hakeem OlajuwonWhat I want is to talk about how someone raised Muslim struggles with the same stuff that everyone else theoretically could. Obviously, the particulars are different, but everybody can sympathize with being forced to answer for their identity, the colour of their skin or their religion. A lot of people struggle with mental illness or romance or failed marriages - these are all parts of my own struggle. I read them through the lens of Islam because that's the particular language I grew up in, but the grammar is universal.
Haroon MoghulRespecting other people's cultures is well and good, but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam, what they do to women. It's indefensible.
Jello BiafraAmerica is not at war with Islam. And it is a mistake and it plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are.
Hillary ClintonThere is not a single Muslim leader today who has the courage and commitment to defend Islam and Muslims, they are all in awe of the United States and other Western powers, and are indebted to them.
Abu Bakar BashirIslam has some of the best defenses against other god viruses and has the potential to be more parasitically aggressive when consolidating political power with a society.
Darrel RayIt was thought that to rally Islam against godless communism would be doing the Soviet Union a very bad turn indeed, and that, in fact, transpired. In 1985, a group of mujahedeen came to Washington and was greeted by President [Ronald] Reagan, who called them "freedom fighters."
Edward SaidIf you look at the curricula of most universities and schools in this country [USA], considering our long encounter with the Islamic world, there is very little there that you can get hold of that is really informative about Islam. If you look at the popular media, you'll see that the stereotype that begins with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik has really remained and developed into the transnational villain of television and film and culture in general.
Edward SaidJust as we won the Cold War in part by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so, too, must we take on the ideology of radical Islam.
Donald TrumpThe Bush administration does not desire to see Islam practiced in its pristine purity.
Louis FarrakhanNot only did the terrorists hijack planes and destroy life, but they also hijacked the peaceful religion of Islam and split the brother and sisterhood of mankind.
Cat StevensI challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.
Yann MartelIslam 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 ArmstrongThat 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 DawkinsThe Jihad is not just a way of testing yourself but also means using violence to spread Islam.
Bassam TibiIn distinguishing between Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids injustice; Injustice against people, against nations, against women. It shuns race, color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst fellowmen. It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind.
Benazir BhuttoAny number of my former brothers felt they would make heroes of themselves in the Nation of Islam if they killed me. ...I knew that no one would kill you quicker than Muslim if he felt that's what Allah wanted him to do.
Malcolm XTraditional Islam is a mixture of all obedience to Allah, and if that requires militancy, so be it.
Deepak Chopra