Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 179
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 EbadiWell, the most important thing about Islam is that we have to differentiate between two kinds of Islam. The first one is the institution of Islam... second, the culture of Islam.
Abdurrahman WahidIn the Christian world, as you remember, Christianity is in the 21st century, Islam is in the 15th century. I don't mean to say that Islam is backward; I mean to say that there are certain experiences that it hasn't gone through. Christianity had the great religious wars of the 17th century. Islam, fortunately for the Muslims, did not have that. Christianity worked out a system of toleration. Islam was always more tolerant of Christendom.
Bernard LewisI do believe that Obama is at war with Islam, it is never too late to embrace Islam. If we were to establish Sharia in America, he would have to stand before Sharia court and pay for the crimes that he committed. The invitation is there for him to give up all of his falsehoods and all of the crimes that he has committed and to embrace Islam.
Anjem ChoudaryWe have reaffirmed again and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace, and when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there's only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country. So, we reject any suggestion of a clash of civilizations.
Barack ObamaIf Islam's sole interest is the welfare of mankind, then Islam is the strongest advocate of human rights anywhere on Earth.
Mos DefThis paranoid Islam, which blames outsider, 'infidels', for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.
Salman RushdieThe problem is sitting in the birthplace of Islam, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where this interpretation of Islam has gone out into the world over the last four decades, creating militancy groups from Indonesia, to now, San Bernardino, California, vicious attack. We have to take back the faith. And we have to take it back with the principles of peace, social justice, and human rights, women's rights, and secularize governance.
Chuck ToddOur leaders today cannot be honest about Islam with us. They will not even use the term "Islamic terrorism," "radical Islam."
Rush LimbaughWhat has been imposed on religion is not religion itself but the custom of those who have been converted to it. I think that the most atrocious of all of this is Islam. They were in the slave trade before Islam. The Arabs were natural slave traders. They were the people who were called on to conquer us, unfortunately.
John Henrik ClarkeIslamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.
Maajid NawazIn 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 Mango"Both Christianity and Islam are logocentric," he told his students, "meaning they are focused on the Word. In Christian tradition, the Word became flesh in the book of John: 'And the Word was made flesh, and He dwelt among us. 'Therefore, it was acceptable to depict the Word as having a human form. In Islamic tradition, however, the Word did not become flesh, and therefore the Word needs to remain in the form of a word โฆ in most cases, calligraphic renderings of the names of the holy figures of Islam."
Dan BrownIf the culprits are Muslim, they have twisted the teachings of Islam. Whoever performed, or is behind, the terrorist attacks in the United States of America does not represent Islam. God is not behind assassins.
Muhammad AliIslamic ethics is based on 'limits and proportions,' which means that the answer to an offensive cartoon is a cartoon, not the burning of embassies or the kidnapping of people designated as the enemy. Islam rejects guilt by association. Just as Muslims should not blame all Westerners for the poor taste of a cartoonist who wanted to be offensive, those horrified by the spectacle of rent-a-mob sackings of embassies in the name of Islam should not blame all Muslims for what is an outburst of fascist energy.
Amir TaheriSince the attachment to the cult of Islam is psychological, the solution must also be psychological. We have all the logical proof that Islam is false. But logic has its limitation. Brainwashed people dismiss logic and pride themselves in their blind faith. Psychological warfare is extremely powerful. The Muslim bravado must be destroyed by humiliations and ridicule.
Ali SinaWhat 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 MoghulI have reported enough about Islam and terrorism to recognize that a lot of what is at stake is not strictly religion, even though it's also about power and control. In the case of Karachi, like so many other growing cities, it's also about land, mafias, gang activity.
Steve InskeepIslam united all heresies persecuted in Byzantine Empire and synthesised them well into a conseffion that later became a symbol of Arab self-affirmation.
Lev GumilevRespecting 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 BiafraThere 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 BashirThere are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It's fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama's father was a Muslim and people have used this to arouse hostility against him.
Feisal Abdul RaufIt 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 SaidThere is no such things as "Islamic terrorism," because terrorism differs from Islam. There's just terrorism, not Islamic terrorism. But the term "Islamic terrorism" has become widespread.
Bashar al-AssadLiberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.
James BuchanMy personal belief is we should not bow to any object. But Islam was aware of this human weakness and fulfilled that need through Haj to kiss a stone. A stone is a stone but the vacuum was filled and it became the holiest object. I have performed Haj and seen the devotion of people braving stampedes only to kiss that stone.
Asghar Ali EngineerSaudi Arabia is militant Islamic extremism, Wahhabi Islam is extreme and violent. These are the people that execute gays. These are the people that stone women who show their face in public. You donโt hear much about it, but it happens.
Rush LimbaughScience is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Lawrence M. KraussI consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Barack ObamaIn Islam, we believe that it is God himself who is the ultimate guide - Al Hadi - one of the names of God is Al Hadi, the Guide. But at the same time, God has provided within the Islamic revelation the possibility of spiritual guidance through human beings, because then everyone can have direct access to God.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr...until the Crusades Islam was indistinguishable from Judaism and... only then did it receive its independent character, while Muhammad and the first Caliphs are mythical figures.
Nikolai Alexandrovich MorozovIslamic Religious Law Fundamentalist Islam wants shari'a to replace the U.S. Constitution and fundamentally transform America.
Pamela GellerTraditional Islam is a mixture of all obedience to Allah, and if that requires militancy, so be it.
Deepak ChopraEither Malcolm X or Martin [Luther King] could have played the role of a unifier, but it was - Malcolm as long as he remained within the Nation of Islam, talking to the converted, he did not represent a fundamental threat to the American government.
Manning MarableIslam stands for the unity and brotherhood of mankind, and not for disrupting the oneness of the human family.
Mahatma GandhiI believe that everybody has the right to believe what they want to believe and to knock somebody's faith and religion is foolish, whatever it may be - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism.
Nicolas CageChristianity, Judaism, and Islam all stem from the same Abrahamic roots. All three reject terrorism.
H. John PooleIf the Koran is the soul of Islam, then perhaps the institution of the Muslim family might be described as its body.
Elizabeth Warnock FerneaMillennials do not know their country at war. They don't see militant Islam as evil. They don't see Islamic terrorism as evil. If they're 30, 911, 2001, they were teenagers, there's been so much propaganda about that. The United States largely has been blamed for these acts of terror, presidents like Bush with their torture have created terrorists and so forth. They've really been given a dose of anti-Americanism, well, I think since they first started going to school but it intensified once they got to high school and college.
Rush LimbaughIn 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.
Tariq RamadanIs there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal that the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity. Those who wish to undermine this principle undermines the foundations of our independence and national security . . . The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time . . . Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.
Mahmoud AhmadinejadThe politicized version of Shia Islam that we see in the Islamic Republic post-1979 clearly is very conservative, but, there are other things one could say about Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of a Shia state because that in itself is a blasphemy as far as most Shia clerics are concerned. There's a theory that he developed in the early 1960s in the town of Najaf talking about - well not liberalism, necessarily, but flexibility though.
Sadakat KadriI as a Muslim believe deeply in the differences that are within Islam. But I also take seriously the idea that we have to come to know one another.
Eboo Patel