Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 157
It's perfectly OK that there are certain people who do not accept Islam at all. Therefore, to announce that I am a Muslim can rub some people the wrong way. But my aim is to show that those governments that violate the rights of people by invoking the name of Islam have been misusing Islam. They violate these rights and then seek refuge behind the argument that Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy. But this is basically to save face. In fact, I'm promoting democracy. And I'm saying that Islam is not an excuse for thwarting democracy.
Shirin EbadiItโs a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution.
Daniel PipesPolitical correctness is a major defect of the western ethos. Some Western countries have even passed blasphemy laws that would put you in legal hot waters if you say anything negative about Islam. This means that the truth about Islam cannot be said but Muslims are given total freedom to spread their religion with lies. Islam thrives were truth is suppressed. That is one reason that westerners convert to Islam. They are lied to. How do you expect a society to survive when truth is banned and lies are allowed?
Ali SinaThere has always been a confusion in the West about -Islam and about the Middle East and the assumption that the countries are Arab. Iranians very much object to that. They are very proud of their own history, but they have this real inferiority-superiority complex thing about the Arabs and the position of Islam in Iran. One of the reasons why Shi'a Islam is so entrenched in Iran is because it has allowed the Iranians to distinguish themselves from the Arabs, who are mostly Sunni.
Hooman MajdIslam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you're a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism, is going to be violent.
Reza AslanSharia is the most oppressive system on earth. It encourages people to lie, if it's for the benefits of Islam. It doesn't allow Muslims to leave Islam, and there's a death penalty in all the schools of Sharia against those that leave Islam. Sharia defines what jihad is.
Mark DurieTo the government, terrorism committed by people who are Muslim is not a reflection on the legitimate interpretation of Islam, even if Islamic supremacist ideology, which endorses jihad violence - Islam, standard, mainstream Islam endorses jihad violence, but our government doesn't want to admit that or deal with it. Here in America, as in Western Europe, this is the key to understand.
Rush LimbaughThere are common denominators that unite all members of al-Nahda: There is no one in al-Nahda who doubts about Islam There is no one in al-Nahda that believes in extremist views of Islam.
Rashid al-GhannushiI have no expertise of other religious traditions so I'm not going to opine on them, but in Islam the more you know about the religion, the more likely you're going to go to hell. Many people will find that paradoxical because we tend to think of religion as a way of making ourselves feel better and a way of damning and excluding infidels or reprobates or heretics or what have you. It was very hard for me to find an Islam that belongs to me and doesn't feel like it's been imposed on me.
Haroon MoghulWhat 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 NomaniThere are certain verses in the Quran which convey injunctions similar to the following: 'Kill them wherever you find them.' (2:191) Referring to such verses, there are some who attempt to give the impression that Islam is a religion of war and violence. This is total untrue. Such verses relate in a restricted sense, to those who have unilaterally attacked the Muslims. The above verse does not convey the general command of Islam. (pp. 42-43)
Maulana Wahiduddin KhanWe intend to do is invite Barack Obama and the American administration and the general public to think about Islam as an alternative really, we believe that the problems in the world today aren't necessarily because of people and they need to go back to the divine law and so ours is a call to go back to the divine law and implement Islam.
Anjem ChoudaryAll too many Muslims fail to grasp Islam, which teaches one to be lenient towards others and to understand their value systems, knowing that these are tolerated by Islam as a religion.
Abdurrahman WahidIn fact many Hindu yogis and Sufis met, they became friends, they spoke about the knowledge and love of God; about all the similarities that exist. And then the simplicity of Islam, the fact these people practiced what they preached brought many, many Hindus into Islam.
Seyyed Hossein NasrAmerica needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, even eaten with people who in America would have been considered 'white,' but the 'white' attitude had been removed from their minds by the religion of Islam.
Malcolm XWe 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 AliI think that rather than condemning Islam, Islam needs to be studied by those who are sincere.
Louis FarrakhanOne unanswered question is whether a Euro-Islam that combines Islam with democracy will be possible in the future. We mustn't confuse desire with reality.
Walter KasperIslam has always been a force that dispels tyrants and tyranny, opression and exploitaion. Islam has always been a force that militates for justice.
Louis FarrakhanIf Islam is so peaceful, why is everybody so damn frightened of offending them? And on the other hand, if Christianity is so violent as people like Whoopi Goldberg and others tell us, why is nobody afraid to offend Christians? People laugh at, make fun of, and mock Christians all day long with no fear whatsoever. But you so much as think anything offensive about Islam, and they descend on you and they accuse you of violating political correctness and they beg you to shut up.
Rush LimbaughThe Islamic world is suffering not only because of external oppression but also because of the loss of its own dignity, of its own heritage, of its own practice of Islam, of its weakening of its own ethics, and many things which are internal to Islam not just external.
Seyyed Hossein NasrRobert Spencer, a prolific anti-Islam writer and a leading Islamophobe who is bent on distorting Islam and demonizing Muslims, has persistently argued that violence and terrorism employed by Muslim extremists is rooted in the Quran and its message. Spencer calls the Quran, a book sacred to Muslim, 'the jihadists' Mein Kampf,' in reference to Hitler's memoir.
Louay M. SafiMy aim is to show that those governments that violate the rights of people by invoking the name of Islam have been misusing Islam.
Shirin EbadiThe sense of Islam as a threatening Other - with Muslims depicted as fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational - develops during the colonial period in what I called Orientalism. The study of the Other has a lot to do with the control and dominance of Europe and the West generally in the Islamic world. And it has persisted because it's based very, very deeply in religious roots, where Islam is seen as a kind of competitor of Christianity.
Edward SaidWhat 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 MoghulOf all religious systems, Islam alone declares that individual perfection is possible in our earthly existence.
Muhammad AsadI hope to see the two great religions, Islam and Christianity, hand-in-hand, embracing each other. Then the Torah and the Bible and the Qurโan will become books supporting one another being read everywhere, and respected by every nation โฆ [I am] looking forward to seeing Muslims read the Torah and the Bible.
Muhammad AbduhAt a moment when distortions of Islam are what feed most Americans, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin has done something both practical and inspiring. He persuades us that the imperiled environment is both common struggle and common ground for people who share, it turns out, more than simply God.
John HockenberryThe Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number.
Abu Bakar BashirModerate Islam? That's a contradiction. It's going to be a long time before we see a new Koran, an equivalent to the New Testament. Attacks don't happen in the name of Buddhism or Christianity; nor do homosexuals get beaten up, as happens daily in Amsterdam.
Geert WildersIslam does give human dignity, certainly. The point I wanted to make is that it is great foolishness to try to impose our notions of democracy. They have their own traditions.
Bernard LewisThe cause of the break with the tradition of antiquity was the rapid and unexpected advance of Islam. The result of this advance was the final separation of East from West, and the end of the Mediterranean unity.
Henri PirenneI think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me.
Win ButlerWell, in the sense of the traditional notion of God, coming out of Christianity and Islam and the Abrahamic religions, I do not hold with that concept of a God or deity. In that concept, I'm agnostic. Okay, I don't know the answer, let's find the answer.
Edgar MitchellIn Islam, there is no priesthood and each person stands before God, like in the daily prayers, without an intermediary. That's in contrast to Christianity, where during the Eucharist, a priest has to officiate and the priest functions as a link - at least in Catholic Christianity - between the laity and God.
Seyyed Hossein NasrThe unimaginable brutality of this latest manifestation of Political Islam in the Arab world is too much to bear for many Muslim Arab
Hisham MelhemIronically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past.
Karen ArmstrongI was born in Quebec City, I've lived there many years before moving to Montreal and then Ottawa. And I mean, Quebec City is a very, you know, closed city if I may say. So it's not easy to be accepted living in Quebec City. So if you're from a different faith, you may be a bit timid in showing your faith. So I mean, you're already from a different country, you're an immigrant and hearing what you hear about Islam, you might not wish to be identified as a Muslim, and you may be very discreet into your faith and going to the mosque.
Andre PratteI find the concept of intelligent design rather dishonest. One should openly stand up for the existence of Allah, should sincerely stand up for religion, for Islam. Or, if one is a Christian, one should honestly stand up for Christianity.
Harun Yahya