Popular quotes about Islam! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 4
Anti-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 PipesThey do not understand Islam, and I think that is one area where perhaps I hope one day I will play a role in actually making people understand what we perceive Islam to be.
Imran KhanIslam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.
Ruhollah KhomeiniI 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 MoghulIslam in the Arab world coexists with Indonesian, Pakistani and Turkish Islam. There is limited solidarity, even within the Arab world.
Walter KasperThere are different versions of Islam... it is meaningless to claim to speak in the name of a โrealโ Islam.
Tariq AliThe 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 MortensonIf Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is dealing with men.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is no problem with Islam itself or with the Muslims, but these are difficult times, and the difficulty stems from radical Islam.
Daniel PipesAfter 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 RoyIslamic 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 TaheriWhen anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion. Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does not know Islam or politics.
Ruhollah KhomeiniSome 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. BushIslam does not mean peace. It means submission. The word "peace" for Muslims has a different meaning. Peace, according to Muslims, will be achieved when everyone submits to Islam. Muslims can't offer peace. They can offer truce. In their minds, peace will be achieved only when you are subdued and they are the masters. Any other arrangement is not Islamic.
Ali SinaThe 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 SaidOf all religious systems, Islam alone declares that individual perfection is possible in our earthly existence.
Muhammad AsadI want to see young people who as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as their young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!
Becky FischerWhat Malcolm X did not know is that back in 1962, a collaborator of Alex Haley, fellow named - a journalist named Alfred Balk had approached the F.B.I. regarding an article that he and Haley were writing together for The Saturday Evening Post, and the F.B.I. had an interest in castigating the Nation of Islam, and isolating it from the mainstream of Negro civil rights activity.
Manning MarableMy 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 EngineerThere 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 KellerI 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 AsadThe Bush administration does not desire to see Islam practiced in its pristine purity.
Louis FarrakhanI challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.
Yann MartelIn 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 NasrIn Islam, the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.
Ruhollah KhomeiniYou 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 CrutcherWhen we think about Islamic feminism, it is not just about women's rights. It's about a more progressive and tolerant expression of Islam in the world for all people. Women's rights is one aspect of it, it's not the end-all, but I also think that the women's issue is the strongest entry point that we've got to challenging extremism. You raise a woman's issue and you get the backs of the conservatives up against the wall faster than just about any other issue in our community. It's the fastest path that we've got to making change happen.
Asra NomaniSome 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. HuntingtonI 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 CageIronically, 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 ArmstrongThe most important things in life can't be seen with the eyes. Ideas can't be seen. Love can't be seen. Honor can't be seen. This isn't a new concept. Judaism and Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and Taoism have all taught for thousands of years that the highest forms of reality are invisible. God is invisible, and he created the universe. Our souls are invisible, and they give life to our bodies. Angels are invisible, and they're the most powerful of God's creatures.
Anthony DeStefanoIn Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings.
Bashar al-AssadWe (Muslims) have no right, in our present misery, to boast of past glories. But we must realise that it was the negligence of the Muslims - and not any deficiency in the teachings of Islam - that caused our present decay.
Muhammad AsadIslam is based on naql (texts) and โaql (intellect). Some people just have the texts โ we call them naql-heads.
Hamza YusufYou've got problems in Central Asia. And you've got problems within our own communities back home. So if we end up saying, look, this has nothing to do with Islam or it's got no connection with that broader question, then we look, frankly, as if we're in denial about the problem. And the interesting thing in the Middle East is that they have absolutely no problem there in identifying that as Islamist extremism and calling it that.
Tony BlairIf I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.
Salman RushdieWe're taking action against evil people. Because this great nation of many religions understands, our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil. This is clearly a case of good versus evil, and make no mistake about it - good will prevail.
George W. BushI know the Muslim psychology. It is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter.
Ali SinaQatar does not have much history, it's a new emirate. So I couldn't draw on the history of the country; its history is really just being a desert. But I thought, the one thing I must learn about for this project is the Islamic faith. So I read about Islam and Islamic architecture, and the more I studied the more I realized where the best Islamic buildings were.
I. M. Pei