“Sometimes people have said that Islam, in its own calendar, is still only in the Middle Ages. It's still in the fifteenth century or whatever. And Christianity in the fifteenth century, after all, was full of inquisitions and burnings at the stake, and so on and so on. So give Islam time, and it will reach the point of maturity that other religions have. But Mormonism is much younger than Islam, and it's got there already. So I don't think that's an argument that works.” PeopleThinkingGivingSaidStillsSometimesAgeChristianityMiddleCenturyArgumentIslamBurningMaturityStakesMiddle AgesCalendarsInquisitionMormonismBurning At The Stake Author:Salman Rushdie
“My 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.” PeopleNeedsShouldHumansBeliefObjectsKissingWeaknessStonesFilledIslamDevotionBowsFulfilledVacuumsPersonal BeliefsStampede Author:Asghar Ali Engineer
“The recent past is full of diverse examples of writers - Mahfouz in Egypt, Pamuk in Turkey, and more interestingly, Pasternak in the Soviet Union - who have conducted their arguments with their societies and its political arrangements through their art in subtle, oblique ways. They didn't always have the license to make bold pronouncements about freedom, democracy, Islam, and liberalism, but they exerted another kind of moral authority through their work.” WayKindArtPastPoliticalMoralDemocracyExampleAuthorityArgumentUnionsIslamLiberalismSubtleSovietDiverseArrangementsEgyptSoviet UnionLicenseTurkeysMoral AuthorityRecent Past Author:Pankaj Mishra
“Free market ideology - does anyone know where it first comes from? It comes from medieval Islam, and specifically, Shari'a. Because Shari'a provided this commercial law that is independent from the state.” KnowsFirstsDoeStatesLawIndependentIslamIdeologyFree MarketMedieval Author:David Graeber
“I don't believe in hell and heaven anymore. Or angels. I think Islam is a superstition like every other superstition. But now because it's a superstition, unlike Christianity, that hasn't been tested and hasn't gone through a process of enlightenment, I think it's a dangerous superstition.” ThinkingBelieveHeavenProcessChristianityGoneHellDangerousEnlightenmentAngelIslamDon't BelieveSuperstitionsTestedHeaven And Hell Author:Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“I did not disregard my culture, if I did, it was the white American culture, and I accepted my true culture, when I accepted Mohammed Ali, because this is a black name, Islam is the black man's religion, and so I would like to say, that I would like to clarify that point that I reclaimed my real culture, and that's being a black man and wearing a black name with a black body, and not a white name, so I would never say that I didn't disown my culture.” IfsMenRealBodyCultureNamesBlackWhiteIslamAcceptedAmerican CultureDisregardMohammed Ali Author:Muhammad Ali
“Islam religion has no color distinction, we are just Muslims.” ColorIslamDistinction Author:Muhammad Ali
“We love to think this fundamentalism and terrorism is all about poverty, and, of course, it has a connection. You can see that these people not only are poor but they have no outlets. These governments allow no opposition. So what do people do? They go to Islam. It's the only organizational institution where they can express their feelings. But it's not about poverty. I've never seen a single demonstration in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system."” PeopleThinkingGivingFeelingsPoorPovertyIslamTerrorismOrganizational Author:Robert Fisk
“I 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.” EnoughIslamTerrorismGangMafia Author:Steve Inskeep
“I believe the world, and particularly the Judeo-Christian West, is in a crisis. And it is a crisis of - both of capitalism, but really of the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian West and our beliefs. We are in an outright war against jihadists, Islam, Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing almost far quicker than governments can handle it.” ThinkingWorldBelieveWarBeliefI BelieveCapitalismCrisisIslamIslamicFascism Author:Stephen K. Bannon
“Assassination, kidnappings and suicide attacks have become too much the standard operating procedure in the Islamic world. So much so that the name of Islam itself has been diminished in the eyes of many people. It is the responsibility of all of us, and particularly those in the Islamic world who care about their religion, to rescue it from its increased association with violence.” PeopleWorldEyeCareResponsibilityViolenceSuicideIslamIslamicKidnapping Author:John F. Kerry
“ISIS rules Muslim apostates every day and then beheads them. Poorly educated guys get Islam for Dummies, petty criminals who think they're suddenly changing their lives because they see the light. The best way to fight them is to show them they don't know Islam at all, and that they are in fact working for the other side.” ThinkingGuyFightingIslamEducatedDummy Author:Malcolm Wrightson Nance
“Trump wants to be an autocrat, he does want to be a Vladimir Putin-style ruler. His chief strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, is a follower of Alexander Dugin. Dugin believes liberal democracy should be destroyed and it should be destroyed from the right, and an alliance of autocracy should form between the United States, Europe and Russia, in order to confront Islam.” BelieveDemocracyIslamRulers Author:Malcolm Wrightson Nance
“We twist ourselves into knots convincing people that Islam is peaceful and varied before we realize that, wait a second, you can be a Muslim while also recognizing that Islam doesn't even explain half of your behaviors!” PeopleWaitingRealizingBehaviorIslamPeacefulConvincing Author:Negin Farsad
“There are hard texts in each tradition which we must confront and ask ourselves, 'Can we reinterpret those texts to allow us to live peaceably, and respectfully, with people of other faiths?' That is a job only Jews can do for Judaism, only Christians can do for Christianity, and only Muslims can do for Islam. But sometimes the sight of someone in one faith wrestling with that faith can empower you to wrestle with another faith.” PeopleSometimesChristianChristianityTraditionIslamJewEmpoweringWrestlingJudaism Author:Jonathan Sacks
“The West, in the form of American capitalism, is seen as having won, but people are beginning to offer alternatives again, sometimes in retrograde ways like radical Islam.” PeopleSometimesCapitalismIslamRadical Author:Karan Mahajan
“My parents were adherents of the Baha'i faith, which is sort of, I can't think of the best way to describe it, but it sort of has the same relationship to Islam that Christianity has to Judaism, and it's a kind of a universalist creed and missionaries aren't paid. You're essentially expected to go out and find a job and do your own thing, and in your spare time spread the faith, and so that was the driving force of us going overseas.” ThinkingKindParentChristianityIslamSpreadDrivingJudaism Author:Lydia Polgreen
“The English monarchy is at best symbolic, whereas the Saudi monarchy is a bloodline, but it's also showing itself as a very primitive culture. So, I think we're moving further and further away from that kind of organization of humanity and the same I would say with religion. I think that organized religions, with the exception of Islam, are really falling by the wayside. People are starting to understand that the religious potential is within and that it's an individual pursuit.” PeopleThinkingKindMovingHumanityFallCultureIndividualReligiousIslamExceptionPrimitiveMonarchyOrganized Religion Author:James Wasserman
“Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.” WorldCountryChristianCommonEmotionIslamRationalSecularismEgyptianDemagogueryArabian Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
“Millennials 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.” ThinkingWarCountrySchoolEvilPresidentCollegeHigh SchoolIslamTerrorTerrorismTerroristTeenagerPropagandaTortureIslamicMilitant Author:Rush Limbaugh
“If 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.” PeopleThinkingLongChristianPoliticalFunChristianityLaughingIslamViolentPeacefulOffensiveShut UpNo FearPolitical Correctness Author:Rush Limbaugh
“Palestinians were religious in many ways, but they did not subscribe to political Islam, historically.” PoliticalReligiousIslamPalestinian Author:Hanan Ashrawi
“The demonization of Islam and immigrants shows that perception of difference remains one of our biggest problems, and maybe always will be for a species that began in small groups competing with other groups for resources. These apparently competing forces for sameness and difference sometimes even seem to be mutually reinforcing. The homogenizing force of globalization tends to make many people feel they are on the losing side, economically and culturally, and it is they who are most easily turned against those "others" who are demonized by demagogues.” PeopleSometimesProblemPerceptionLosingIslamCompetingGlobalizationSameness Author:David Wong
“We 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.” PeopleThinkingWorldBelieveProblemTodayDivineIslamBarack Author:Anjem Choudary
“With the loss of the American dollar as its own currency and its devaluation, I think that people will not even be able to afford bread and milk. They're facing a real crisis in America and I think the solution is Islam.” PeopleThinkingRealLossSolutionsCrisisIslamCurrency Author:Anjem Choudary
“I believe Sharia law, however it comes, is the future for America. I believe, one day, that the people will adopt it anyway. A lot of issues we're looking at now are already enshrined within the Sharia. For instance, the gold standard for when dealing with inflation and a lack of confidence with the stocks and shares, which has been prevalent for the last many decades. All of that is prohibited in Islam.” PeopleBelieveI BelieveShareOne DayGoldIslamInflation Author:Anjem Choudary
“I 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.” GivingBelieveWarCrimeGiving UpEmbraceIslamCommittedFalsehoodInvitations Author:Anjem Choudary
“Muslims who convert to Christianity are not protected. That carries capital punishment. He would be given the opportunity to repent, and the Sharia court would need to determine if he was really a Muslim in the first place, did he know what he was doing, and once all of that has been determined, there is capital punishment for that in Islam.” OpportunityChristianityIslamDetermineDeterminedRepentCapital Punishment Author:Anjem Choudary
“Hitler was obviously a dictator. And he was Christian. And I think that he persecuted the Jews, there's no doubt about that. And he did that for nationalistic reasons, which would be prohibited in Islam.” ThinkingReasonChristianDoubtIslamJewDictator Author:Anjem Choudary
“One of Donald Trump's criticisms of President Barack Obama and of Hillary Clinton was that they seemed reluctant to use the words radical Islam. It was not just semantics. Trump said it's important to name the enemy idea and then attack it. Consider the Cold War. The U.S. and its allies waged a kind of propaganda war against the communist idea using radio broadcasts and other tools. Trump has said he'd do the same against Islamic extremism.” KindImportantWarPresidentEnemyColdCriticismClintonIslamRadicalBarackPropagandaIslamicCommunistCold WarExtremismPresident Barack Obama Author:Tom Gjelten
“We have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith. Professed to stand up for Islam, but in fact are betraying it. Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” PeopleThinkingRememberHumanityChristViolenceTerribleUniqueHorseIslamTerrorCommittedBetray Author:Barack Obama
“Militant Islam, jihad, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, you name it, they are conquerors. It might be politically correct to say, somebody like Obama might try to justify what they're doing based on the Crusades, which he constantly does, but it has nothing to do with this. They are conquerors. Islam is a conquest ideology. Not even a religion.” TryingIslamIdeologyJustifyConquestConquerorPolitically CorrectMilitantJihad Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I traveled around America and then at nineteen, went to Europe and hitchhiked from London to the Himalayas in India. I studied various forms of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and in India, various forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. Eventually, I came to the path of unconditional love and devotion to the one God, who in our tradition we call Krishna. I met my guru and became a swami. This allowed me to share that gift, which I consider to be a very deep universal expression of compassion.” CompassionChristianityPathShareBuddhismTraditionIslamVariousDevotionUnconditional LoveHinduismJudaismUnconditionalGuruKrishnaVery Deep Author:Radhanath Swami
“There was this famous clash of civilization thesis from Samuel Huntington, a political theorist. And the idea was that Western civilization is at war with Islam and maybe some of the other civilizations around the world. And I don't agree with that. But I do think there is such a thing as Western civilization. I think it starts with the Greeks and the Romans. Then it goes through the Enlightenment - or the Reformation, the Enlightenment. It goes through the scientific age. And it somewhat defines some of the cultures and mores of Europe and North America and some other countries.” ThinkingWorldWarCountryAgePoliticalCultureEnlightenmentAgreeIslamWesternGreekClashThesis Author:David Brooks
“Imagine if today, they invented a religion that advocated the killing of gays. We would not tolerate that. However, Islam is a religion that advocates that.” TodayImagineGayIslamKillingTolerate Author:Greg Gutfeld
“Conservatives believe that we need to defeat radical Islam not because we want war but because ISIS and other radical Islamist are enemies of peace and that's why we need a president, who in which under whom the best intelligence agencies in the world will find terrorists and the best military in the world will destroy them. And if we capture them alive, a president that will bring them to the United States. A president that will grant them a court-appointed lawyer, a president that will send these terrorists where they belong, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” WorldBelieveWarPresidentEnemyMilitaryIslamDefeatLawyerTerroristRadical Author:Marco Rubio
“We 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.” WarCountryTeachIslamClash Author:Barack Obama
“At the end of the day we're all spirits having a physical experience. That really comes from my relationship with Islam because it just makes me really conscious of my action.” ActionSpiritConsciousIslam Author:Mahershala Ali
“I think that one of the things that is happening in the so-called "clash of civilizations" is that the confidence that was once obvious in the Western Judeo-Christian tradition has been weakened tremendously. There's a feeling that there's a cynical, corporate layer that's really driving it - one that's ready to compromise - and that the real confident energy around the world is coming from Islam, that the believers take their own faith at face value and with great confidence and in far greater numbers.” ThinkingWorldRealFeelingsValuesEnergyTraditionIslamWesternObviousBelieverDrivingCompromiseCynicalClash Author:James Toback
“One of the big problems in this field is that there's so much mystification that surrounds talk of the Shari'a, whether its saying that Islam is all about peace or whether its people saying that Islam is all about Jihad and all about suicide bombs. People will make statements which don't seem to be backed up by any sort of historical context.” PeopleProblemSuicideHistoricalIslamSurroundJihad Author:Sadakat Kadri
“The 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.” ConcernedIslamConservativeIslamicLiberalismFlexibility1960sBlasphemy Author:Sadakat Kadri
“I 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.” PeopleThinkingWorldLongPhilosophySpiritualityLanguageInterestingModernBuddhismPhilosophicalIslamSecularReally Interesting Author:Win Butler
“Whenever Muslim women protest and ask for their rights, they are silenced with the argument that the laws are justified under Islam. It is an unfounded argument. It is not Islam at fault, but rather the patriarchal culture that uses its own interpretations to justify whatever it wants. It utilizes psychology to say that women are emotional. It utilizes medical science to say that men's brains are formed in such a way that they are better able to understand concepts. These are all hypotheses. None of this has been proven.” CultureBrainPsychologyEmotionalArgumentIslamMedicalJustifyProtestJustified Author:Shirin Ebadi
“The condition of women in Islamic societies as a whole is far from desirable. However, we should acknowledge that there are differences. In certain countries, the conditions are much better and in others much worse. For example, the conditions women face even in Egypt differ a whole lot from what their Iranian counterparts deal with. The condition of women in Pakistan is far different from that in Saudi Arabia. This shows that you can have different interpretations of Islam.” DifferentCountryIslamAcknowledgeIslamicIranian Author:Shirin Ebadi
“There is no "true Islam," just different interpretations. Since I brought up patriarchy, let me make one thing clear. I am not singling out men; I am addressing the issue of inequality of genders. A patriarchy does not only not accept the equality of the sexes, it also has a hard time understanding the principles of democracy and its essence. Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers. Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother's home. This is the culture we need to resist and fight.” MenMindDifferentHomeCultureFightingUnderstandingAcceptingDemocracyLet MeVictimIslamGenderInequalityHard TimesPatriarchy Author:Shirin Ebadi
“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.” PeopleAcceptingDemocracyArgumentAimIslamExcuseRefuge Author:Shirin Ebadi
“That there's no link between Islam and Christianity and Judaism. There wouldn't be Islam if there wasn't Christianity or Judaism, because it's all one long line of revelation. Seeing it from that point of view it makes you ask yourself why Muslims sometimes separate themselves from that large family that leads to Abraham and, even before that, to Adam. The only answer is that we're conditioned to do it by thinking, Hey, I do things better than he does.” ThinkingLongSometimesChristianityIslamPoint Of ViewRevelationsJudaism Author:Cat Stevens
“There's a common threat facing all of us - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - and that is the Antichrist. It's a very deep subject, and it's a horrendous thing to contemplate. Someone will appear who is, in fact, the opposite of what he appears to be. Some people will believe in him, and that's really frightening. In Islam, there's a belief that Jesus will return to destroy the Antichrist, which is something many people don't know about the Islamic faith.” PeopleBelieveChristianJesusBeliefCommonThreatIslamJewIslamicContemplatingFrighteningVery DeepAntichrist Author:Cat Stevens
“There 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.” RealCountryReasonProudIslamConfusionAssumption Author:Hooman Majd
“Being someone who prays or fasts doesn't mean you want an Islamic state. Islam in the form of the Iranian state has been defeated in the Arab world. All Islamist movements now want to copy the Turkish model.” WorldMeanPrayingIslamIslamicDefeatedIranianTurkish Author:Burhan Ghalioun