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History Is Replete With Ideologies Of Freedom, Justice, Liberation Of The Downtrodden And The Exploited, That Have Been Turned Against The Very People They Had Mobilised, Or That Have Reproduced The Same Logic Of Exclusion And Terror Toward Those Whom They Claimed To Set Free.

-Tariq Ramadan

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History Is Replete With

Tariq Ramadan

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History Is Replete With Ideologies Of Freedom, Justice, Liberation Of The Downtrodden And The Exploited, That Have Been Turned Against The Very People They Had Mobilised, Or That Have Reproduced The Same Logic Of Exclusion And Terror Toward Those Whom They Claimed To Set Free.

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We Must Re-center Philosophy Within Our Frame Of Reference Which I Think Is The Way To Deal With It.

Islamism Implies Some Sort Of Political And Social Plan For Muslim People. In That Classification, We Find Different Categories. Legalist Ones, Traditional Ones And Revolutionary Ones. Some Of Them Are Revolutionary But Are Non-violent, Others Are Extremely Violent. There Are Also The Ones We Call The Literalists, Like The Egyptian Party Hizb Al-nour That Used To Be Against Democracy And Now Is Getting Into The Political Game.

As Muslims, We Are All Equals, We Abide By The Laws And We Understand That We Have To Be Active Citizens Wherever We Are. Our Goals Are First To Live By Our Principles, To Remind People Of These Values, To Reconcile Our Respective Societies With These Shared Universal Values And To Try Our Best To Push For A Spiritual Agenda With More Ethics In Society, In Politics, In Economics, And In Culture.

As Muslims, We Must Have An Active Presence Based On Ethical And Moral Consistency. We Need To Be Very Vocal, To Inform People, To Demonstrate When Necessary. We Need To Write So That The People Understand That What They Are Getting From The Media And Politicians Is Biased And Not Accurate. And This Is True Especially When It Comes To Some Communities Within The U.s. Or With Respect To The Middle East And Africa. This Is What I Am Expecting From A New Generation Of Leaders: Meet These Expectations Of Moral Consistency.

A True Teacher Doesn't Teach You To Think Like Him, But To Think Without Him.

The Problem, Once Again, As In All Sciences Is The Attitude Of The Mind That Is Dealing With Whatever Field. The Problem Is Not Philosophy But The Lack Of Intellectual Humility. It Is When Reason Becomes Arrogant That We Lose Track. But Intellectual Humility With Science: This Is Spirituality - This Is The Way We Are With God. So We Should Not Be Scared And We Must Reconcile Ourselves.

Our Emotions Are Often Beautiful, But They Can Also Be Dangerous. They Represent Our Spontaneity, And Seem To Speak To Us Of Our Freedom.

Saying That The Origin Of The Islamic State (is) Is Within The Muslim Brotherhood Organisation Only Strengthens Is.

Because Ethics Is Fundamentally About Questioning The Ends, The Goals And Aims Of Our Actions, We Must Come Back To The Rules And Ask Why. So We Must Return To The Philosophy Of Law, The Raison D'etre And The Point Of What We're Asked To Do. It's Not Easy, It's Very Demanding And It Needs Intellectual Courage.

Political Rhetoric Leads Only To Confusion.

Is [islamic State] Has Played A Major Role In Helping Bashar Al-assad To Reposition Syria On The International Scene. Now, It Is Almost Impossible To Come Up With A Solution That Would Exclude Him. The Political Game Appears To Be Very Cynical Indeed.

The Diversity Is The Risk Of War, The Necessity Of Diversity Is Mutual Respect

In The West Or Anywhere Else, The Treatment Of People In An Undignified Way (structural And Institutionalized Racism Against Latinos Or African American Citizens) As Well As A Dangerous Dehumanization Of Some People (in Palestine, Iraq, Africa Or Asia) Are Simply Unacceptable.

Shouldn't The American Leadership Be Addressing What Is Happening In America, With Its Domestic Policies On Racism, Discrimination, Illegal Monitoring, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Guantanamo Bay And Any Other Social And Political Issues Related To The American Society Not Directly Connected To Islam? American Muslims Must Speak Out And Be Involved As Well In International Policies And, Through Their Institutions, They Should Raise Their Voice. This Is The Way You Serve The Community.

Integration Is A Word Of The Past, The Word Of The Future And The Word Of The Present Is Contribution.

We Need To Acknowledge That There Is A Real Issue With How The Scriptures Are Being Interpreted. Whenever I Am Told That Terrorists Are Not Muslim, I Systematically Reply That They Actually Are, And They Cannot Be Marginalised, The Same Way They Are Marginalising Other Muslim People. Scriptures Are Quoted Even Though Their Interpretations Are Twisted. In The Face Of Misinterpretation The Only Way Out Would Be Using Another Interpretation Of The Scriptures.

When I Go Back To The Quran I See That The Context Of Revelation Is Creation In Its Entirety. The Universe Is A Revelation And This Of Course Includes Nature, Plants And Animals. In Other Words, What Is Coming From The Quran As Rules And Objectives Are Set Within The Larger Scheme Of The Universe And Nature As Part Of Creation.

How Can Someone Like Alain Juppé Still Claim I Haven't Condemned The Paris And Brussels Attacks, When I Actually Have. What I Am Saying Is Crystal Clear.

Serve Humanity, Regardless Of Religion. Show Solidarity For Those Suffering And Oppressed.

Behind Every Great Man Is Not A Woman, She Is Beside Him, She Is With Him, Not Behind Him

Behind Every Great Man

Clarity And Consistency Are Not Enough: The Quest For Truth Requires Humility And Effort.

Those Young Ones Who Want To Try Military Jihad Are Facing A Triple Issue. First Of All, They Are Missing The Point When It Comes To Understanding What There Is At Stake From A Political Viewpoint. How Come So Many Of Them Are Going To Syria And So Few To Palestine, Even Though, When It Comes To Symbolism, Palestine Definitively Wins.then, It Is Essential To Understand That It Is Not A Religious Matter. Finally, Let's Not Forget About The Recruiters Behind Their Screens. Those Ones Are Quite Skillful And Well-supported Financially.

There Is A Sufi Trend, A Madhabi Sufi Trend, And I Don't Have Any Problem With This. What Is Not Acceptable Is That, First, Some Scholars Are Trying To Show To The Audience That They Are Open To Other Trends. However, When It Comes To The Retreat Or The Panels, They Don't Want To Be With Some Of Us Because They Are Scared Of Being Exposed.

There Is One God. We Have An Epistemic Center. There Is Meaning.

The Bric Countries - Brazil, India, China, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia Even, And Russia - Are Now New Actors. Over The Last Eight Years, China Multiplied By Seven Its Economic Presence And Penetration In The Middle East. And If This Happens On Economic Terms And There Is A Shift Towards The East, The Relationship Between These Countries And Israel Is Completely Different From The United States. And It Means That The Challenges Are Going To Be Different, Because China Is Not Supporting Israel The Way The U.s. Are Supporting Israel.

A Time Will Come When You're Going To Be Numerous But Your Impact In The World Will Be Like Nothing

As Muslims The Way We Show Respect To The Creator Is By Respecting Creation And This Is Why We Have To Reconcile Ourselves With The Objectives Of The Revelation And The Objective Is Really To Honor Nature As Part Of Creation.

Saying That Islam Is In Heart, Is Similar To Giving Back The Exam's Paper Completely White And Saying : Knowledge Is In Brain.

Anyone Who Tries To Separate Or Divorce Domestic Politics From International Politics Does Not Get It, And That Might Be Dangerous For The Future Of Western Muslims.

Always Walking Along Despite The Dangers And Adversities, Despite The Injustices And Horrors, Trusting In God So As Not To Despair Of Men And Events.

One Would Love Nonetheless To Know How To Be A Man, How To Be A Woman Before God, In The Mirror Of One's Own Conscience, In The Looks Of Those Who Surround Us. One Would Wish To Find The Strength To Beautify One's Thoughts And To Purify One's Heart. It Is Everyone's Hope And Expectation To Live In Serenity And To Plod Along In Transparency: The Palms Of The Hands Patiently Directed Towards Heaven, At The Heart Of All This Modernity.

I Understand The Need To Serve The Community By Talking About Marriage Or Halal Food. But You Should Also Lead With Vision, Wisdom And Courage.

You Can't Say 'i Don't Do Politics,' Because Silence Is A Political Statement.

If You Do Your Work, If You Are Committed At The Grassroots Level, If You Have A Vision For The Long Run (not Only Short-sighted Interest), You Can Change Public Opinion.

The Logic Of Freedom Of Religion Implies Freedom To Be An Atheist, Even Though, From A Historical Perspective, This Has Not Been Accepted In The Muslim World.

Drafting Of The Constitutions Is Interesting And The Discussions Around Them Revealing In Many Ways. I Take It As A Discussion Of Very Important Symbols Revealing Many Different Problems. My Take At The Beginning Was To Warn That Tunisia Might Be The Only Successful Country, The Only One To Justify Us In Talking About The Spring, While All The Other Countries Were Less Successful, If Not Failing. Now The Point Is That Even In Tunisia It Is Not Going To Be Easy, And This Is Where We Have A Problem.

The Dogmatic And, Therefore, Invulnerable Core In Islam Is Understandably Simple: Acknowledgement Of Faith, Prayer, Charity And Fasting. Almost Everything Else Is Open To Interpretation And Modification In Space And Time.

There Are Certain Things That We Cannot Understand, Like Why We Pray Five Times A Day, For Example. But The Fact That We Choose To Pray Is Understandable.

I Don't Like This Vision That Turkey Is Successful Because It Is As Successful As The Western Powers In Economic Terms. But I Do Think They Are Trying To Find A New Space In The Multi-polar World, And This Is What I Am Advocating. I Don't Think That Muslims Have An Alternative Model.

The Turkish Road Is Not My Model Because I Am Critical Of The Way You Are Dealing With Freedom Of Expression, Of How You Are Dealing With The Treatment Of Minorities, And Your Economic Vision.

Very Often When I See People Who Are Perceived To Be, Or Who Call Themselves Progressives, Sometimes I See An Imbalance. Yes I Understand The Courage In Their Mind But I Don't See The Spirituality In Their Heart, Good You Are Questioning The Limits, But What About Yourself, Are You Also Liberating Yourself?

Our Pluralist Society Must Provide Its Citizens With The Tools To Understand Religions, Their Symbols And Their Practices.

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

American Muslims Are Already Within The System. We Should Stop Isolating Ourselves By Thinking We Are Powerless. The Youngest Generations Of Americans Have A Better Opinion Of Islam Because They Interact With Muslims. Half Of Young American Citizens Now Are Supporting The Palestinians Rather Than The Israelis. Things Are Moving.

Emancipation Can Only Come From Within; It Cannot Be Dictated By Someone Else. A Law Banning The Wearing Of Headscarves Changes Nothing, Except Perhaps External Appearance. Naturally, Islamic Feminism Must Also Include The Right To Education, To Work And The Freedom To Select One's Own Husband.

Sometimes People Confuse Silence As Wisdom When In Fact It Is Compromise.

Muslims, Scholars Or Not, Are On The Side Of The Oppressed And Never On The Side Of The Oppressors. Some Scholars Claim They Don't Do Politics But If You Listen To Their Statements In The Middle East Or In Other Conferences, They Support Corrupt Regimes And Despots, Such As As-sissi.

Pushing The Limits, To Be Thought Provoking, Pushing People To Think And Question The Limits, It's Not Always Bad For The Rules If You're Confident Because It Can Even Strengthen Your Understanding Of Religion In The Process.

Thought Provoking

As Western Muslims And American Muslims, We Need To Understand That The Values And Principles We Promote Are Not Only Muslim Values. American Muslims Live In A Country Where Justice, Dignity, Freedom And Equality Are Essential Values.

South Africa Is Labouring To Find Its Revolutionary Path; The Colours Of The Rainbow Nation Have Difficulty Blending Together; The Wealthy Elites (white, Black Or Indian) Profit From De Facto Segregation.

Tell Me What You Are Doing With Your Suffering, And I Will Tell You Who You Are.

Our Task Is To Change The World For The Better, Not To Adapt Ourselves To The World.

Changing The World

I Keep On Repeating Something Told To Me By An American Psychologist: "when You Are Making A Joke About Someone And You Are The Only One To Laugh, It Is Not A Joke. It Is A Joke Only For Yourself." If People Are Making A Joke They Have The Right To Laugh At Me But I Will Ignore Them. Ignoring Doesn't Mean That You Don't Understand. You Understand It So Much That You Don't Want To React.

Ramadan Is, In Its Essence, A Month Of Humanist Spirituality.

The 21st Century - And The Atheists - Needs The Presence Of Religion, Just As Religion Must Deal With The Real Challenges And The Thinkers Of The Day In Order To Sharpen The Conscience And The Intelligence Of Those Who Study The Timeless Sacred Texts In A Spirit Of Responding To The Questions Of Their Time.

The Universality Of Islam Is Not Uniformity, It Is Unity With Diversity.

The Findings In Contemporary Social Sciences Are Helping Us Understand That We Can Find Other Ways To Educate People And Act Against Injustice And Corruption In Our Society.

The More You Look Into And Understand Yourself, The Less Judgmental You Become Towards Others.

Intellectual Humility

The Problem With Salafis Is That They Are Religiously Sincere And Politically Naïve. And They Allow Themselves To Be Supported By People Who Have No Religious Sincerity But Who Are Politically Very Smart, Especially When It Comes To Their Economic Interests.

Freedom Of Expression Is Not Absolute. Countries Have Laws That Define The Framework For Exercising This Right And Which, For Instance, Condemn Racist Language.

We Are In A World That Is Connected, But Is Not Communicating.

If You Know How To Live, Even Death Is Good News

The Collective Psychology Is Something Very Close To Being Sacred - We Can Do It But We Don't Do It. We Should Understand That The Holocaust In The European Conscience Is Reaching A Point Which Is Very Close To What Is Sacred For People In The Southern Countries, Whether They Are Muslims Or Not. Because Of That We Need To Try To Have Intellectual Empathy.

You Can't Have Anything Happening Today Within The Petro-monarchies, Is Going To Be Too Risky For The United States And The Oil Interests There.

Malaysia Is A Country Unlike Any Other: Full Of Promise And Fragility. Its History, Cultural And Religious Diversity Make It A Rich, Compelling And Surprising Land.

I Am Saying The Same To Muslims In The Global South, Telling Them: "just Ignore What Is Done." However, In The Southern Countries They Are Not Living In A Comfortable Society Like You And Me. They Deal With Unemployment, Corruption, And Surviving. For The Majority Of Them, Their Religion Is Helping Them Survive.

51% Of The French People - Who Are Not Very Religious - Were Thinking That What "charlie Hebdo" Did Was Unwise. They Aren't Asking For A Law To Prevent Charlie Hebdo From Publishing Caricatures, But They Are Calling On Its Editors To Be A Bit More Sensible.

You Can’t Be Good To Others If You’re Not Strict With Yourself. The More Shallow You Are With Yourself, The Harsher You Are With Others. The More Profound You Are With Yourself, The More Generous You Are With Others

Nature Is Telling Us That If You Don't Respect The Environment Then You Are Living With Artificial Needs And A Consumerism That Is Destroying The Very Conditions We Need To Survive.

It Is Important That The Muslim Leaders, Scholars, And Intellectuals Are Much More Vocal And Explain What Islam Is.

To Live Is To Love,to Serve, To Forgive. Love The One, Love And Serve Humanity. To Learn To Love Oneself And To Love Is To Learn To Forgive

In Its Haste To Bolster Nationalism, In Its Obsession With Security, Europe Is Losing Its Soul.

Things Need To Be Properly Named. Political Confusion Starts With Terminology Confusion. Islamism Implies Some Sort Of Political And Social Plan For Muslim People. In That Classification, We Find Different Categories. Legalist Ones, Traditional Ones And Revolutionary Ones. Some Of Them Are Revolutionary But Are Non-violent, Others Are Extremely Violent. There Are Also The Ones We Call The Literalists, Like The Egyptian Party Hizb Al-nour That Used To Be Against Democracy And Now Is Getting Into The Political Game.

Political Confusion Starts With Terminology Confusion.

The Suicide Bomber Who Blows Up Israeli Children Cannot Transform Himself Into A Martyr. The Palestinian Problem Is Not An Islamic Problem.

Pray In The Night So That You Can Change The World In The Day

Changing The World

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

Proud To Be A Muslim Isn't A Stamp You Have On Your Heart, It's A Light You Have In Your Heart.

To Be More Precise, It's Ethics And Liberation, And As A Consequence There Is An Ethics Of Liberation.

I Look To Islamic Ethics To Find Something That Can Provide The Basis For Shared Values With Other Traditions, And Ultimately Universal Values. This Ties Into The Point I Made In A Book, 'the Quest For Meaning', That The Only Way For Values To Be Universal Is If They Are Shared Universal Values. My Main Point Is, In This Quest For Value The Aim Is Not To Express Your Distinctness From Others, But About Being Able To Contribute To The Discussion Of Universal Value.

Muslims Must Decide, Lest They End Up Divided By The Very Religion That Calls Upon Them To Unite.

The Problem With What We Call The 'arab Spring' Is That These Are Very Nationalistic Experiences. Tunisians Are Concerned With Tunisia, Egyptians Concerned With Egypt And So On.

Since The Uprisings In The Middle East Many Scholars Have Come Out Saying That Freedom Comes First Before The Shariah. There Is Also Something Important That We Must Keep In Mind In Our Understanding The Shariah, And That Is The Room For What Is Permissible Should Be As Wide As Possible. So We Should Leave It Open To Let People Be Creative.

When We Begin To Look Around Us, To Observe Individuals And Societies, And To Study Philosophies And Religions, We Realize That Our Loneliness Is Shared. Our Solitude Is Plural, And Our Singularity Is The Similarity Between Us.

For Muslims, The Source Of Everything We Do Is Based In The Belief That There Is One God, And This One God Is Revealing To Us There Is One Humanity With Equal Dignity For Each, Beyond Faith, Color And Social Status. Whatever Your Status, Color, Background Or Religion, You Have The Same Dignity.

The Perception In The Arab World Now Is That We Are Having Secularists Against Islamists, And That's It. So The Secularists Are Progressive; The Islamists Are Reactionary, Conservative. This Perception Is Wrong.

The Philosophy Of Fasting Calls Upon Us To Know Ourselves, To Master Ourselves, And To Discipline Ourselves The Better To Free Ourselves. To Fast Is To Identify Our Dependencies, And Free Ourselves From Them.

Discomfort Levels In Our Societies Are Rising, Or So It Would Seem. In Theory, We Invoke Diversity And Tolerance. But In Real Life, We Raise Our Hackles And Withdraw Into Ourselves.

Our Democratic Societies Are In Danger. In Allowing Ourselves To Be Infiltrated By Fear, To Be Blinded By The Passion Of Identity, We Are Entertaining The Most Serious Illusions About Our Freedom.

The Universe Is Pregnant With Signs That Recall The Presence Of The Creator.

We Cannot Have A Free Market Since It Does Not Really Set Us Free. It's Free For Interest, Speculation And Consumerism To Create False Needs.

You Cannot Limit The Debate To Being Solely In Favour Or Against. It Should Be More Complex. When You Condemn, You Need To Understand What Led To It. In General, If It Is Our Responsibility To Condemn Terrorist Actions After They Had Happened, We Have An Even Greater Responsibility Beforehand To Make Sure They Won't Happen.

No One Can Deny That Some Islamist Groups Have Credential And Popularity. But That Does Not Mean They Are A Majority. If We Are Serious About Democracy We Cannot Blame The People For Choosing What They Want. We Must Promote The Kinds Of Procedures And Processes That Are Helping The People Move Ahead.

The Discriminations That Are Found In The Muslim Majority Countries Are More Cultural Than Islamic. .... I Have Always Said To The Muslim Women, Please Do Not Nurture The Victim Mentality. Stand Up For Your Rights.

The Nature Of The State Is One Thing, But There Are Other Major Challenges - What It Will Take To Tackle The Issues Of Social Corruption, For Example, Social Justice, And The Economic System - And What Are The Future Challenges When It Comes To Equality Between The Citizens, In Particular In The Field Of The Job Market And Equal Opportunity For Men And For Women? This Is At The Centre Of The Question That Is The Arab Awakening.

To Be Courageous Is To Be A Voice For The Voiceless

In My Book, The Arab Awakening, I Talk About The Fact That We Have To Move From This. All The Contemporary Ideologies Of Political Islam Have Been Based On The Nation State. The Nation State Is Very Problematic But I'm Not Sure If We Have An Alternative Political Model.

If We Agree To Say That Those Terrorists Are Indeed Muslim, I Have No Problem Whatsoever To Condemn Their Actions. I Won't Apologise Though, Or Justify My Point Of View.

We Should Know That The American Administration Is Very Much Involved With The Egyptian Army. And When You Talk About The Egyptian Army, We Don't Only Talk About, You Know, Political Power, We Talk About Economic Power.

No One Must Ever Let Power Or Social, Economic, Or Political Interest Turn Him Or Her Away From Other Human Beings, From The Attention They Deserve And The Respect They Are Entitled To. Nothing Must Ever Lead To A Person To Compromise This Principle Or Faith In Favor Of A Political Strategy Aimed At Saving Or Protecting A Community From Some Peril. The Freely Offered, Sincere Heart Of A Poor, Powerless Individual Is Worth A Thousand Times More In The Sight Of God Than The Assiduously Courted, Self-interested Heart Of A Rich One.

Islam Can Only Be Modernized From Within. If I State That I Condemn The Practice Of Stoning, That This Punishment Is Despicable, It Changes Nothing. My Fellow Muslims Will Say: Brother Tariq, You Became A European, A Swiss Citizen, So You Are No Longer One Of Us.

To Be Kind Is Good. To Be Kind Without Expecting Anything In Return Is Better.

I Wanted To Understand. I'm Not Here To Support One, But I Am Here To Criticize All, On A Principled Position. I Very Much Value The Position Of Counter Power. I Think This Is Where Ethics Should Be, In Front Of Power As I Said In Radical Reform. The Power Of Counter-power Is Very Important.

We Have To Free The Muslim Mind From The Obsession With Limits And Rules And Forgetting The Path And Objective. This Is Truly A Liberating Process, And For Me This Is Islam: Liberation From The Ego, And In This Case Liberating Ourselves From The Wrong Understanding Of The Religion.

What Is Irreversible In The Arab World Is This Intellectual Revolution, The Awakening That We Can Get Rid Of Dictators. That Is Here, And The People Have This Sentiment And This Political Power. They Feel That They Can Do It, And It's Still There. At The Same Time, We Don't Know What Is Going To Happen. So To Be Very Quick By Saying, "oh, Revolutions And Arab Spring," And - You Know, What I'm Advocating Is To Take A Cautious Optimism As The Starting Point Of Our Analysis And To Look At What Is Happening.

What We Also Need To Have A Discussion On The Philosophy Of Art: So We Must Ask What Is It That We Want In The First Place? Is It Just About Saying And Doing Whatever You Want, Or Is It About Something More? We Should Let The Artist Be Free, But We Must Also Question How Exactly He Deals With Freedom. Is It Arts For Elevation Or Arts For Destruction? Is There Dignity In The Process?

When I Am Talking To People From Germany, We Should Know That There Are Certain Things And Certain Histories That Are Very Important For People. If You Look At All The Muslims Living In The West, They Didn't React In A Violent Way. They Don't Like What They Saw But They Are Citizens Like You And Me And They Look At It And Say: "this Is A Silly Video But We Are Not Going To React."

Globalisation Means Indeed Everything Is Global But There Are Still Very Specific Centres Of Power, Especially When It Comes To Media And News.misinformation About Some Attacks Is Going To Affect How Emotionally Involved The Audience Is Going To Get. In The End, An Emotional Ranking Is Artificially Created When It Comes To Casualties.

I'd Say That The Modern Social Sciences Are Just Showing Us Why The Conditions For Implementing Hudud Are So Demanding, And Thus Hudud Should Only Be For The Absolutely Last Resort.

Being Muslim Has Become Synonymous With Pointed Questions, With Tension And Mistrust, Even With Conflict. It Has Become A Global Phenomenon With Profound Consequences For Inter-communal Relations, Political Rhetoric And Policies At The Local, Regional, National And International Level.

I Wouldn't Call It Naive But Silly. History Does Not Work Like This. If You Look At The Dynamics Of Eastern Europe Or Even Germany Post Reunification, You Realize That Change Takes Time. No One Can Deny The Fact That We Are Still Not There - I Am Advocating Something Which Has To Go From Uprisings To Revolutions. It Is Not Coming Straight Away That It Is Not Going To Come But What We Have To Advocate Is That The Democratization Process Is Always Better Than State Dictatorship.

Nevertheless, I Have No Political Agenda Whatsoever, Even Though Some Might Think The Contrary.

Don't Treat People The Way They Treat You. Treat Them Better.

Destroying The Nation State Are Mainly Three Things: The Global Economy, Global Communication Technology And Global Culture. And This Is Where We Are Lost In The Process. What Could Be Something That Can Provide Us A Transversal Political Sense Of Belonging? At The End Of The Day, Without An Alternative We End Up With Populism In The Name Of Very Narrow Identities.

Even After The Whole Democratization Process, It's Quite Clear That The United States Are Not Seen In A Positive Way In All The Muslim-majority Countries - In Egypt, In Libya, Even In Tunisia - Even Though We Have Now A Kind Of Trying To Be Recognized As Democrats By The Islamists Who Are Running, You Know, Tunisia And Egypt. But The Popular Sentiment Is Very, Very Negative.

If Barack Obama Was To Say Egypt, With The Muslim Brotherhood, Is An Ally, He's Going To Be Destroyed Here By, You Know, The Opposition Saying, "how Come You Can Say That The Islamists Are Your Ally When These People Are The Same Who Are Hamas, And Hamas Is Against Israel?" It's The End Of It. So He's Saying, "we Are Just Wait And See; We Are Trying To Deal."

The Challenge For Muslims In America Is To Respect The Fears Of Ordinary People While Resisting The Exploitation Of Those Fears By Political Parties, Lobbies And Sectors Of The Media. To Meet This Challenge, Muslims Must Reassess Their Own Involvement, Behavior And Contributions In American Society.

I Am Not A Politician. I Have Often Been Approached In This Regard, But I Have Always Declined These Sorts Of Offers. I View Myself As An Independent, Critical Intellectual, As Someone Who Tries To Stimulate Thought On The Left And The Right, To Encourage Intellectual Evolution.

I Don't Buy Anything Which Is Islamization Of Knowledge. I Don't Understand What It Means In Fact.

There Is The Philosophy Embedded In The Culture We Are Living. It Is Quite Clear For Example That Arabs Have A Different Culture Than Malaysians.

Islam, As A Religion, Has Been Established In France For A Long Time, And The Religious Question Has Been Resolved In This Country. Islam Does Not Threaten France's Future In Any Way.

Tunisia's Responsibility, And Especially That Of Its Political And Intellectual Elites, Is Enormous. All The Protagonists Of The Nation's Social, Cultural, Economic And Political Life Must Work To Overcome Useless And Counterproductive Polarisation, And To Find Solutions To Domestic, Regional And International Problems.

Part Of The French Political Class Is Realising That There Is Are Large Number Of Muslim People Coming From The Ghettos Who Want To Make Themselves Heard, Politically, Especially About Foreign Policy Issues. Its Electoral Weight Can Bring Back To The Forefront The Palestinian Issue.

Violence Against Embassies And Civilians Must Be Categorically Condemned. At The Same Time, We Must Attempt To Understand Why Such Events Occur.

If You Want To Have A Good Life, Never Forget That You Are Going To Die

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

Intellect Is A Part Of A Good Faith. Intellect Is The Light, The Heart Is The Direction.

The Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

Now No One Can Deny The Fact That Whatever Is The State Of The Affairs In The Country, You Did Not Have The Army Controlling The Country And You Have A Pluralistic Society Anyway.

Saying That I Am Talking Out Of Both Sides Of My Mouth Just Proves My Very Point. Politicians Would Bypass Real Social Issues By Referring To My Grandfather, Who Founded The Muslim Brotherhood, Or To My Brother, Currently Chairman Of The Islamic Centre In Geneva.

Lack Of Consistency Is A Weakness Shared By All Nations.

The Problem Is That The Constitution Should Have Been And Was An Opportunity, Exactly As Moncef Marzouki Tried To Do, To Bring Together The Secularists And Islamists.

Greek Philosophy Departs From The Assumption That We Can Understand The World Autonomously Using Our Rational Faculties. Islam Is Not Saying This.

I Want The American Muslims To Tell The Leaders What They Are Telling Me All The Time. I Want This Internal Debate To Happen And The Muslims Cannot Just Criticize The Leadership Without Being Involved. At The End Of The Day, You Have The Leadership You Deserve.

The End Of The Day

You're A Man, But The Day You Raise Your Voice To Your Mother, You're Not Anymore.

It Is Only Through The Opposition Of Ideas That We Can Learn To Be Self-critical, To Work Towards Intellectual Humility.

I Have Learned That One Should Say "peace!" To Those Who Shout Their Hatred For One's Being And Presence Or At One's Passage.

Never Forget Your Dialogue With God, It Is Your Strength.

Populism Is Everywhere. We Have Religious Populism In The Muslim-majority Countries As Much As We Have Populism In The United States Of America.

Saying That The Origin Of The Islamic State (is) Is Within The Muslim Brotherhood Organisation Only Strengthens Is. This Is What The Israeli Government Asserts When Claiming That Hamas And Is Are The Exact Same Thing. By Saying So, The Historical Resistance [against The Israeli Occupation] Is Viewed As Unlawful, Called Extremism And Terrorism.

We Fail When We Try To Give Simple Answers To Complicated Problems.

As Muslims, Our Interests Are Our Values. In Any Society, Be It In Western Or Muslim-majority Countries, Our Duty Is That Of Critical Loyalty: Staying Loyal To Our Countries By Always Being Critically Engaged In The Name Of The Principles Of Justice, Equality And Human Brotherhood. We Should Be The Ethical And Moral Voice Wherever We Are By Saying That, Even Though We Understand Economic And Geo-strategic Interests, We Cannot Accept A Violation Of These Principles By Any Society.

We Need To Deal With Three Things That Are Important: First, We Need A Very Deep Reconsideration Of How We Are Dealing With The Economy. Second, There Must Be A Very Deep Reconsideration Of Our Way Of Life. We Cannot Simply Adopt American-style Consumer Culture. To Islamize That Is To De-islamize Islam.thirdly, It Is Important For Us To Understand The Economy And The Environment Are Common Challenges For Everyone. This Is Where The Singularity Of Islamic Principles Needs To Join The Universal Values That We Share With Others.

While Criticism Of Israel Is Legitimate And Justifiable, It Cannot Be An Excuse - In Any Way, Shape Or Form - For Anti-semitism.

I Don't Think We Should Take The Emotional Reactions Of A Few People As More Representative Than Those Of The Millions Of People Who Took To The Street In A Non-violent Way Against Dictators.

What You Need To Do Is Protect The Structures And Dynamics That Are Helping The People Choose. The Only Thing That We Can Do Is To Respect The Will Of The People When It Comes To Majority Processes. It Is Not For Us To Impose A Model, It Is Not For Us To Impose Answers To Some Critical Questions.

Advertising, Music, Atmospheres, Subliminal Messages And Films Can Have An Impact On Our Emotional Life, And We Cannot Control It Because We Are Not Even Conscious Of It.

My Experience Of Living With People Of Diverse Religions And Cultures Taught Me That One Will Never Be At Peace With The Other If One Is At War With Oneself.

We Need To Realize That We Should Be On The Side Of Any Human Being Who Is Oppressed.

In Fact All The Islamists, That Is The Reformists Not The Salafis, Now They All Say That They Want A Civil State, A Civil State With Islamic Reference Points. They Are Not Talking About An Islamic State, Or Sharia In The Way This Was Once Understood In The Fight Against The Colonisers, Or Just Afterwards In The 70's, 80's And 90's.

In My Book Radical Reform I Made It Clear That We Cannot Talk About The Environment Or Ecology If We Don't Also Deal With The Economy. There Is A Direct Link Between How We Deal With The Economy And How We Deal With Nature.

The Process Of Reclaiming The Self Is One Of Reconciliation With Meaning.

The Philosophical Connection Between The Islamic World And The West Is Much Closer Than I Thought. Doubt Did Not Begin With Descartes. We Have This Construction Today That The West And Islam Are Entirely Separate Worlds. This Is Wrong.

I Think Many Thinkers And Activists, Even In The Islamist Parties Like The Muslim Brotherhood, And The People Who Left The Muslim Brotherhood To Follow Abou El-fatouh, These People Do Have An Understanding That The Relationship Between Religion And The State Must Be Re-thought And Re-assessed. They're Not Going To Use The Concept Of Secularism In Any Straightforward Way, Because The Concept Of Secularism Is Still Far Too Loaded In That Part Of The World.

For Me I Made It Clear That I Wanted To Meet With Both Sides Of The Political Spectrum.

If You Read The Qur'an With Your Head, You Find Repetition. If You Read It With Your Heart, You Find Depth.

The Media Is Putting A Lot Of Emphasis On The Few People That Are Destroying, While It Won't Report On The Silent Majority Of People Who Are Constructing, Building And Trying To Find Their Way.

Just Take Germany And The Suffering Of Jews During And After The Second World War. It Would Be Legal To Ridicule And To Laugh At This Suffering, But Since It Was Such A Trauma On The European Conscience, No One Is Going To Do It. It Is An Open Scar, An Open Wound, An Open Reality.

Only In The Crucible Of Self-mastery Can Freedom Be Smelted

If You Are Only Concerned With International Issues And/or The Power Of Some Lobbies That Are Influencing American Policy, Then You Are Isolating Yourselves. You Are Powerless In Your Mind When You Don't Understand The Meaning And Quality Of Your Own Real Power.

We Have To Be Very Cautious Not To Accept The Scam Of Polarization We See In The Media. It Is Not In Fact Between Secularists And Islamists, It Is A Battle Within The Islamic Reference.

I Think What We Are Seeing Is A Vicious Circle: By Covering The Controversies And The Conflicting Realities, It Creates A Much Distorted Perception Of Islam And Muslims. When A Minority Is Being Taken As A Majority, It Creates A Wrong Image.

I Have Never, So Far, In All The Studies I Have Done, Met A Contradiction Between What The Human, Experimental And Natural Sciences Are Telling Us And The Islamic Rules. In Fact, The Opposite Is True: Anything That Is Coming From The Modern Sciences Is Helping Me Better Understand The Text. It's Not A Contradiction. It's A Relation.

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

Islam Came To Teach Us That There Is No Faith Without Intelligence And Here We Are: Destroying Our Intelligence In The Name Of Faith.

Feeling Sympathy And Searching For Explanations Isn't The Same As Believing That The Violence Is Justified.

The Question About The Salafi Is An Important Question As I Say In Arab Awakening, And Have Often Repeated Since. I Am Really Underlining The Importance Of This, Because We Really Don't Have Very Good Memories. Remember - The Taliban In Afghanistan Were Not At All Politicised In The Beginning. They Were Just On About Education. And Then They Were Pushed By The Saudi And The Americans To Be Against The Russian Colonisation, And As A Result They Came To Be Politicised.

The Point For Me Is People Who Are Atheists Or Are Coming From Different Religious Traditions; They Are Coming From Their Own Sources And Specific Roots. We Should Analyze These.

For Me, Equal Citizenship For Muslims, Christians, Jews, Atheists And Agnostics Is An Indisputable Principle. Whoever You Are, You Should Get The Same Rights With No Discussion And No Compromise.

Having Traveled A Lot And Met People From Different Horizons It Makes You More Humble And Ready To Listen.

Humility Is Knowing That You Can Get An Answer From Anybody: Be It A Child, Another Person, Or Nature.

To Those Who Say "sufism Is Apolitical" Or "no Politics," I Respond: "no Politics Is Politics." Look At The Very Old African Sufi Tradition, The Asian Sufi Tradition, Or The North African Sufi Tradition. Then You Get It And Understand What Sufism Is All About Wisdom, Courage And Resistance.

The Truth Does Not Belong To You, You Belong To The Truth.

When Manuel Valls Says There's Nothing To Understand Because "understanding Is Justifying," He Echoes Back To Georges W Bush's Logic In 2001. When François Hollande Says "they Are Attacking Us Because Of Who We Are," What Does It Say About Victims In Mali, Baghdad, Ivory Coast Or Turkey?

An 'islamic Economy' Or 'islamic Finance' Doesn't Mean Anything To Me. But I Do Think That In The Multi-polar World, It Is Time To Find New Partners, To Find A New Balance In The Economic Order. And This Could Help You To Find An Alternative Way Forward.

When Terrorism Is Directly Aiming At Western Countries, It Is Automatically And Abnormally Enlarged In Order To Instill Emotions And Fear. However, When Attacks Happen In The Middle East, Is It Conveniently Downplayed And Less Talked About. Unless They Would Benefit More From A Heavy Coverage.

The Very Moment You Understand That Being A Muslim And Being American Or European Are Not Mutually Exclusive, You Enrich Your Society. Promote The Universal Principles Of Justice And Freedom, And Leave The Societies Elsewhere To Find Their Model Of Democracy Based On Their Collective Psychology And Cultural Heritage.

If People Who Cherish Freedom, Who Know The Importance Of Mutual Respect And Are Aware Of The Imperative Necessity To Establish A Constructive And Critical Debate, If These People Are Not Ready To Speak Out, To Be More Committed And Visible, Then We Can Expect Sad, Painful Tomorrows. The Choice Is Ours.

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

I Am Portrayed As A Dangerous Individual Who Can Be Fought Thanks To Their Ideas.

And The Crowd Often Betrayed The People

The 'fires'n That Produce Thick, Rarely Innocent, Often Strategic Smoke Should Therefore Be Scrutinized. They Should Be Known And Identified; And When They Involve Dishonesty, Lies, Or Manipulation, They They Should Be Ignored.

When You're Overwhelmed By Your Emotion, You Listen Less And You Judge More. This Is Also The Reality Of The Dogmatic Mind.

The United States Of America Or The Western Countries, They Don't Have A Problem With Islamists As Long As They Are Neoliberal Capitalists And Promoting The Economic Order. And The Best Example Is The Petro-monarchies. The Petro-monarchies, They Don't Want Democracy. They Say There Is No Democracy In Islam. But They Are Within The Economic System.

The Fact That This Organisation Is Called The Islamic State Reveals Something Even Deeper. In Fact, It Implies That Every Single Islamist Party In Egypt, Iraq Or Tunisia Are Not Really Representing Islam And Muslim People. Nowadays, Political Islam Is Going Through A Crisis, However This Crisis Is Necessary, For It Will Lead To A Changing Way Of Thinking. In Order To Make It Out Of This Dead-end, Reviewing Political Islam Becomes Mandatory.

Muslim Societies Must Leave Behind These Dual Aspects: Secularism/islamism.

There Is Great Potential And Deep Fragility [in Malaysia] That Can Be Used By Any Group That Stresses On Religion, Pushing Towards Islam, Rejecting People And Alienating Migrants - Anything Can Be Used To Win The Next Elections. So These Are The Signs Of Fragility That Is Very Much There.

Times Have Changed; So Must The Lenses Through Which We See The Political Future.

Times Have Changed

There Is Something Which Is Going To Be One Of The Main Challenges In The Muslim World Today, In The Muslim-majority Countries In The Arab World, Is The Religious Credibility. How Are You Going To React To What Is Said About Islam? So, By Touching The Prophet Of Islam, The Reaction Should Be, Who Is Going To Be The Guardian?

Humility Is My Table, Respect Is My Garment, Empathy Is My Food And Curiosity Is My Drink. As For Love, It Has A Thousand Names And Is By My Side At Every Window.

Acknowledged Differences May Create Mutual Respect, But Hazy Misunderstandings Bring Forth Nothing But Prejudice And Rejection.

Every Country In Europe Needs Immigrants For Its Economic Survival.

We Need To Challenge The Dominant Culture: By Ethics, Principles And Values.

Very Often We Talk About India And China, But Not Really Malaysia And Indonesia. The Potential In The Shift To The East Is Going To Be Great And Very Important For This Country.

Muslims Must Speak Out And Explain Who They Are, What They Believe In, What They Stand For, What Is The Meaning Of Their Life. They Must Have The Courage To Denounce What Is Said And Done By Certain Muslims In The Name Of Their Religion.

Everywhere The Salafi Are Pushing By Saying, "we Are The Guardian, And We Are Resisting Any Kind Of Relationship To The West Or Provocation Coming From The West." And Internally, It's Unsettling The Whole Situation. Now In Tunisian, In Libya, In Syria, In Egypt, The Clash Between The Literalists And - The Islamists Or The Reformists Is Something Which Is Going To Be Part Of What We Have To Deal With As To The Future Of America.

Instead Of Looking Outside Of Ourselves And Counting Potential Enemies, Fasting Summons Us To Turn Our Glance Inward, And To Take The Measure Of Our Greatest Challenge: The Self, The Ego, In Our Own Eyes And As Others See Us.

I Want To Be An Activist Professor.

Salafi Is A Very Broad Concept In Islam. What We Have Now Is, Like, For Example, The Nour Party In Egypt Or The Salafi In Tunisia Are People Who, In Fact, We Call Very Often Wahhabi, Following The Saudi School Of Thought And Law. And They Are Literalists In The Way Where It's Black And White, There's A Very Narrow Interpretation Of The Scriptural Sources. For Decades, We Knew That They Were There, But They Were Not Involved In Politics. What Is Completely New For All Of Us Over The Last Years Is That They Are Now Within The Political Arena And Playing The Democratic Game.

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Many Times I Have Asked Muslim Women Not To Nurture The Victim Mentality. Stand Up For Your Rights

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