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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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Muslims, Scholars Or Not,

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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Shaking Up Whole Region Means That Israel Needs The Us For Its Safety And Military Camps Are "flourishing" Everywhere In The Middle East. It Has Been Said That Barack Obama Is Less Interested In The Middle East. I Don't Think So. This Mess Has Been Created And Maintained. Maybe The Us Is Pretending To Be Less Interested, However, It Allows Them To Take Their Power Back When It Comes To Security.

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I Had No Intention To Cover My Tracks Since I Am Not A Politician And I Do Not Represent Anybody.

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Thought Provoking

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Behind Every Great Man

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Critical Thinking

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Young Generation

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I Think We Are Making A Mistake, A Very Big Mistake If We Look At What We Call The Arab Awakening Only By Looking At The Whole Dynamics In Political And Not In Economic Terms.

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National Politics And Elections Are Dominated By Emotions, By Lack Of Self-confidence, By Fear Of The Other, By Insecurity, By Infection Of The Body Politic By The Virus Of Victimhood.

Self Confidence

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?

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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.

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.

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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.

Islam Is A Religion Of Justice And Dignity, And We Are Taught To Never Keep Silent When Facing Injustice, Discrimination And Double Standards.

Double Standard

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

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We Have To Reconcile Ourselves With Philosophical Questions In Every Field. Every Field Should Be Open To Inquiry And Knowledge.

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.

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

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.

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

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

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

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.

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Your Sensitivity Is Power. Don't Let People Transform Your Qualities Into Weaknesses.

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Arabic Is The Language Of The Qur'an, But Arab Culture Is Not The Culture Of Islam.

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

Changing The World

I'm Working On Different Fields. One Of My Next Books Insha'allah Will Be A Novel Because It's Important To Explore The Heart And Imagination, The Spiritual Side. I've Been Working For Twenty Five Years In The Legal Field And Now I'm Reaching What I Want, Which Is An Islamic Applied Ethics And I'm Also Dealing With Muslims In The West.

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

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

Changing The World

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

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

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

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.

The Strength Of Democratic Societies Relies On Their Capacity To Know How To Stand Firm Against Extremism While Respecting Justice In The Means Used To Fight Terrorism.

We Need To Revisit How The Prophet Dealt With Water, Animals, In How He Talked About Slaughtering, Caring For Plants And So Forth. Respect Towards Nature Is A Part Of Islam. This Is Essential But Muslims Are Not Aware. The Whole World Is Talking About Global Warming And Respecting Nature But Muslims Are Not Doing Enough Of That.

Those Organisations, Al-qaeda Being The First One, Have All Settled In Areas Full Of Mining And Oil Resources Or In Geostrategic Zones. They Settled In Afghanistan Which Underground Is Filled With Oil And Lithium. North Mali Is Filled With Mining Resources (uranium). It Is Essential To Question The Impact And Role Of Some International Players That Create Or Let Those Organisations Settle There.

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.

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.

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

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

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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

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.

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.

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

I Want To Be An Activist Professor.

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.

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?

What We Have Within The Sunni Tradition Is This Clash Between The Literalists And All The Other Trends And The Salafi Movement, That Are Very Much Acting On The Ground And Using The Popular Sentiment To Act Against The West.

Lack Of Consistency Is A Weakness Shared By All Nations.

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.

In The Muslim-majority Countries You Can't Do Without Islam, We Can't Do Without Their Culture, In Which Way They Are Going To Come Back To This Islamic Reference To Find A Way To Deal With The True Challenges And Not The Superficial Political Questions.

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

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

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.

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.

The Message Of Islam Asks You To Be Intellectually, Spiritually, Socially, And Politically Independent

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.

Islam Doesn't Need Reform, We Need To Reform The Muslim Mind.

We Must Master Our Egoism, And Through This Mastery, Step Outside Ourselves And Educate Ourselves In Giving. Fasting Requires That We Rediscover All That Is Alive Around Us, And Reconcile Ourselves With Our Environment.

The Very Essence Of The Sufi Spiritual Tradition Requires You To Purify Your Heart, To Liberate Yourself From Your Ego And To Be Courageous In Facing Any Corrupt Power, Injustice And Oppression. Unfortunately, Colonial Powers Pushed An Agenda By Using Sufism Against Resistance, And Some Ulama Played That Game In The Past And In The Present.

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

Times Have Changed

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

Terror Will Crash Down On Us If We Fail To Understand That A Pluralistic Society Requires The Personal And Daily Commitment Of Every Citizen.

I Believe My Religion Is The Truth, But I Am Not The Truth And The Truth Doesn't Belong To Me I'm Trying To Belong To The Truth.

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

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

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?

Cultures Are Never Merely Intellectual Constructs. They Take Form Through The Collective Intelligence And Memory, Through A Commonly Held Psychology And Emotions, Through Spiritual And Artistic Communion.

Collective Memory

Criticizing To Destroy Is Easy, Thinking In Order To Build Is Much More Difficult To Achieve

Unfortunately There Are Some Trends That Are Changing This But You Don't Have For Example As Strict And Narrow Understanding Of The Relationship Between Men And Women. And Then There Is The Philosophy We Have To Extract In The Relationship Between Text And Culture.

Life Is Not Black And White When It Comes To Perception.

Black And White

Politics Is Mainly About Interests. As Muslim Citizens, We Understand These Interests But We Should Put Principles And Dignity Beyond Everything.

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.

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 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.

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.

True Sufism Is Resistance: Spiritual, Intellectual, Social, Cultural, Political And Economic Resistance. It Cannot Be, For Sure, Supporting Dictators.

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

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.

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

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

There Is A Claim Coming From The West That Says That All Art Must Be Outside Any Moral Consideration. I Can Understand This As A Provocation, But I Also Believe That We Can Still Have Very Profound Creativity With A Moral Sense.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Teach The Heart Not To Give Way To Proud Emotions And Arrogant Thinking; Bring The Mind To Heart-soothing Solutions That Make It Possible To Control Oneself Gently And Wisely.

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

The Muslim Contribution To The Future Of America Is To Not Only Speak Out As Muslims, But To Also Speak Out As Citizens In The Name Of Our Common Values. Our Main Contribution Is To Reconcile The American Society With Its Own Values, Those That Are Not In Contradiction To Islam. We Have A Duty Of Consistency.

We Are Not Competing For The Good When We Only Compete For Numbers, Being Preoccupied With How Many Converts We Are Gaining. The True Competition For Good Only Happens When We Are Implementing Our Values Of Justice.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Think That Political Parties Are Fuelling This Fear In Order To Create Divisions. The More We Bring Up Fear, The More We Neglect Real Political Issues. Political Debate In France Is Crumbling Since Every Single Issue Is Brought To Islam Now.

If You Do Not Have Boundaries, You Do Not Have A Path.

I'm Not Talking About Reforming #islam..it Is To Reform The #muslim Minds & The Muslim Understandings Of The Texts.

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.

The Best Measure Of A Successful Life Is The Way We Turn Away, We Renounce, And Even By The Way We Depart It.

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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.

If You Look At How Great Artists Of The Past, Like Beethoven, For Example Dealt With Art And Morality, You See That There Was Torture And Pain In Their Work, But There Was Also Dignity In The Way That Was Dealt With. So I Don't Buy This Contemporary Notion That The Only Way To Be Artistic Is To Be Arrogant, Offensive Or Immoral.

Islam Has No Problem With Women, But Muslims Do Clearly Appear To Have Serious Problems With Them

In Islam, Rules Are Important, Like The Prophet Said Innal Halaala Bayyinun, Wa Innal Haraama Bayyinun ["what Is Halal Is Clear, What Is Haram Is Clear"]. The Goal Is Not To Diminish The Importance Of Rules, But To Have The Right Priorities.

I Am Dealing With People With Both Sides. I See People Who Are Liberating Themselves But They Want To Forget The World. And I See People Who Want To Liberate The World But They Forget Themselves. Neither Is The Way I Want To Go.

No Civilisation Can Claim To Have A Monopoly On Universal Values And No One Can Claim To Be Always Faithful To His Own Values.

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

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

Compelling A Woman To Wear A Headscarf Is Against Islam, And Compelling Her To Remove It Is Against Human Rights.

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

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.

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

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.

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Sterling Hayden

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