Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
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 EbadiI 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 MandviItโs 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 SinaThe U.S. always needs an enemy. It comes and goes. Today it is Islam. According to this plan or ideology of the born-again Christians who formed an alliance with Zionism, Islam is the monster.
Walid JumblattIn 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 SaidMany people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
Ayaan Hirsi AliEurope becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam. And Italy is an outpost of that province, a stronghold of that colony... In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Quran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism.
Oriana FallaciI think there is a lot of continuity between the Jewish and the Islamic traditions. We know this historically, though people don't want to talk about that - especially Muslims. There is a common source for both Judaism and Islam, or let's say that Islam finds its source in Judaism. The commonalities of practice and sensibility, ethos and mythos, create a lot of overlap.
Ayad AkhtarIt 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 LewisPolitics can be a factor neither in shaping Islam nor directing Muslims' acts and attitudes in Islam's name.
Fethullah GulenThe best example is that if any person, any Muslim wants to leave Islam, then the penalty is death. It is not even allowed to leave it. That's why I believe Islam should not be compared with other religions like Christianity or Judaism.
Geert WildersIn 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 MangoIt was not Muslims that had made Islam great; it was Islam that had made the Muslims great.
Muhammad AsadMoses led his people through the wilderness and he wasn't permitted to enter the Promised Land. Jesus was crucified. Mohammad founded a state which soon became an empire, so that Islam from the very beginning is involved with government, with politics. And therefore there is a very clear strong political tradition in Islam.
Bernard Lewis"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 BrownIslamic 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 TaheriSome of the comments that have been uttered about Islam do not reflect the sentiments of my government or the sentiments of most Americans. Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of people, is a peaceful religion, a religion that respects others. Ours is a country based upon tolerance and we welcome people of all faiths in America.
George W. BushWhat 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 MoghulIslam united all heresies persecuted in Byzantine Empire and synthesised them well into a conseffion that later became a symbol of Arab self-affirmation.
Lev GumilevIt 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 SaidIslam is at once the most and the least interesting of the world's monotheisms. It builds upon its primitive Jewish and Christian predecessors, selecting a chunk here and a shard there, and thus if these fall, it partly falls also.
Christopher HitchensTake a moment to reflect upon the existence of the musical The Book of Mormon. Now imagine the security precautions that would be required to stage a similar production about Islam. The project is unimaginableโnot only in Beirut, Baghdad, or Jerusalem, but in New York City.
Sam HarrisThe Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number.
Abu Bakar BashirI am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.
Kumar SangakkaraI do not feel that the West has really become less condescending toward foreign cultures than the Greeks and Romans were: it has only become more tolerant. Mind you, not toward Islamโonly toward certain other Eastern cultures, which offer some sort of spiritual attraction to the spirit-hungry West and are, at the same time, too distant from the Western world-view to constitute any real challenge to its values.
Muhammad AsadI am not saying people should not be free to join whichever reason they choose but should we be forced to live our lives around a belief system that originated somewhere around the fourth or fifth century BC. I cannot see any more reason to base a belief system around Christianity, Judaism or Islam than I can around Lord of the Rings.
Alan MooreIslam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you.
Cal ThomasIslam is a religion based upon knowledge, and a denial of the possibility and objectivity of knowledge would involve the destruction of the fundamental basis upon which not only the religion, but all the sciences are rooted.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-AttasDuring the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.
Bernard LewisYou can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.
Chris CrutcherThe Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.
Tahir ShahI found the speech, after listening to it in context, vile in manner, repugnant, malicious, mean-spirited and spoken in mockery of individuals and people, which is against the spirit of Islam. While I stand by the truths that he spoke, I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented.
Louis FarrakhanI have nothing against Bosniaks/Islam, but it is the desire to direct political processes that is completely unacceptable.
Milorad DodikMy life is very simple. I like simplicity and for my time to be my own, so that I have the freedom to devote the majority of it to Islam.
Hakeem OlajuwonIt [destroying Twin Towers] was a leap into another realm - the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It's important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.
Edward Said...we must learn -once again- to regard Islam as the norm by which the world is to be judged.
Muhammad AsadAs a matter of fact the majority of the Muslims living in our society are moderate people. But don't make the mistake that even though there are moderate and radical Muslims that there is a moderate or a radical Islam.
Geert WildersI have assured His Majesty that our war is against evil, not against Islam. There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know - that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion. The exact opposite of the teachings of the al Qaeda organization, which is based upon evil and hate and destruction.
George W. BushThough philosophical Hinduism has no other god but God, it cannot be denied that practical Hinduism is not so emphatically uncompromising as Islam.
Mahatma GandhiThe reason Ataturk, Kemal Ataturk was and is so highly reputed, is he was attempting to modernizeโฆ Thatโs not the right word. Well, it is. For lack of a better way of saying it, he was trying to make Islam compatible with the modern twentieth century world.
Rush LimbaughThere's no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity. This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does.
Sam HarrisWhile many Islamic countries pay lip service to the idea of freedom of religion, they don't put up with conversion from Islam to another religion.
Ibn WarraqIf the cops come upon a mass murder attack that is clearly instigated by Islamic doctrine, they are not permitted to conclude that it is terrorism because they have been directed by their superiors in law enforcement to maintain that Islam is against terrorism.
Rush LimbaughThe Prophet was taken by the order of God to heaven, which is a prototype of all spiritual realization in Islam. But, he had a guide; Gabriel, the angel, was his guide. He took him to heaven.
Seyyed Hossein NasrThe great majority of us are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (may peace be upon him). We are members of the brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in rights, dignity and self-respect. Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake: Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah