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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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51% Of The French

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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Cherish Your Tears And Their Reasons, They Will Be The Light Of Your Smile, Your Inner Peace And Reconciliation.

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

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

There Is No Faith, Without A Critical Mind

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.

We Have To Be The Media When Media Is Silent

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

In 2012, Those French Muslim People Voted Massively For Francois Hollande Against Nicolas Sarkozy. With The Results Of Elections Getting Even Tighter, Those Votes Can Make The Difference. I Am Obviously Not In Favour Of A "community Electorate," However, Pressure Is So Great On Them That I Can Easily Understand How It Can Affect Their Votes.

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.

Black And White

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.

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.

Mankind Must Be Positively And Constructively Wary Of Mankind, Of Their Fellow Man, Of Their Families, Of The Members Of Their Faith Community, Of Their Fellow-citizens.

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.

The Most Dangerous Prisons Are Those With Invisible Bars

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.

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.

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.

Lack Of Consistency Is A Weakness Shared By All Nations.

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

I Want To Be An Activist Professor.

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

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

Changing The World

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.

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.

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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.

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

Man Is Certainly Free, But He Is Responsible For This Freedom Before God As Before Men. This Responsibility Is Inevitably Moral. In Order Of This Morality, To Be Free Is To Protect The Freedom Of Others And Their Dignities.

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

Fear Is Created Which Can Lead To Racism. However, We Can Overcome That Fear Through Trust.

"if We Had Not Created A Set Of People Against Another The World Would Have Been Corrupt", And "against" Here Means Two Things: Against In The Fact That They Are Challenging You With Their Diversity, Challenging Your Intelligence And To Challenge Is Not Negative, It Can Be Very Positive Depending On How You Are Challenged.

In Sha Allah, God Willing, Must Be The Expression Of Humility Of The Active Actors And It Must Never Be The Justification Of The Passive Observers

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.

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.

Religious Symbols Should Be Visible In Public Space, In A Dignified And Non-provocative Manner. Christmas Trees Here, Jewish Menorahs There And, Further Along, A Minaret - These Symbols Represent Human Life In All Its Diversity.

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

It's Okay To Feel The Need For Protection If There Is A Real External Threat. But To Feel Protective From The Inside, It's A Kind Of Jail: You Get So Protective That You Cannot Get Out Of The Box.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The Link Between Domestic Policy And International Affairs Is Essential: We Cannot Say We Care About Domestic Issues And We Leave International Politics, And The Opposite Is Wrong As Well. Both Are Connected And Should Be Addressed Together.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wisdom Is Always Connected To Beauty. When You See Someone Acting By Their Principles, Their Wisdom Makes Them Beautiful.

We Should Not Treat People As They Treat Us, We Should Treat Them Better.

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

Victim Mentality

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

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

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

What I See Now Is That Even With The Islamists, Who Have Been Portraying Themselves As The Alternative To Corruption And Dictatorship And In Defence Of More Transparency, There Is One Respect In Which They Have Now Changed Completely. Since The Beginning Of The 1920's, Islamism Was Very Close In Positioning In Some Respects To 'liberation Theology'. But That Is No Longer The Case.

Still I Have Been Invited I Don't Know How Many Times To Turkey, Where Turkey Has Been Following Very Quickly In The Footsteps Of What Is Sometimes Referred To As The Movement Of Cyber-dissidents. They Have Been Training Young People And Also Encouraging Them To Come Into Contact With Western Muslims.

To Islamize Doesn't Make Sense To Me. But To Center, But To Have Intellectual Empathy And Modesty - All These Dimensions Are Important On How We Look At Truth.

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.

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

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

Changing The World

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

What We Get From All Religions Especially From The Prophet's Life, Peace Be Upon Him, Is That There Is No Way To Reach Peace If We Are Not Ready To Sacrifice, Not Ready To Strive, Not Courageous Enough To Face The Powers Here And The Dictators Who Don't Care About Humanity Or Human Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Have A Moral Sense Is Not To Be Dogmatic In Dealing With Rules. It Can Be An Open Way With Dealing With Questions Of Objectives And Purpose, Which Is Completely Different.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Your Heart Is The Center Of Humility, Your Mind Could Be The Source Of Arrogance.

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

Black And White

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?

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

Times Have Changed

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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.

We Have Talked About Revoking French Citizenship For Some Individuals. Therefore, I Have Decided To Apply For Citizenship, Which In A Way Points Out The Contradictions Of This Bill That States The Forfeiture Of French Citizenship Exclusively To Individuals Holding Dual Nationalities. Through This Application, I Put Myself In The Midst Of The French Political Debate And Discredit Everything That Might Be Said Against Me About This Matter.

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

If You Look At How We Are Destroying And Disrespecting Creation It Is Obvious That Is Something Is Not Clear In Our Understanding. We Overemphasize Rules But We Don't Understand The Objective.

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.

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

You Can Be A Very Charitable Capitalist. Like [nicola] Sarkozy Was Saying, We Have To 'moralise Capitalism', Which For Me Is A Contradiction In Terms.

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

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?

And The Crowd Often Betrayed The People

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Islamic World Is Obsessed With The Notion Of Strong Leaders. This Is A Mistake. We Don't Need Powerful Leaders, But Rather Unconventional, Progressive Thinkers With The Courage To Open Our Minds.

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.

There Is Dignity In Your Being Even If There's Indignity In What You're Doing.

Don’t Nurture A Sense Of Guilt; Rather, Nurture A Sense Of Responsibility Married With A Sense Of Humility.

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

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

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."

If There Is A Smoke, There Is A Fire, The Saying Goes, That Is Quite True, But One Should Find What The Fire Is, And Who Lit It.

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

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

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.

The Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

We Can Think Of Solutions In Various Theoretical Ways, But It's Not So On The Ground. If They Don't Have A Reference That Helps Them To Belong, Then They Will End Up Excluding, And Through That They Get To Feel That They Belong On The Basis Of Some Narrow Identity, Language Or Color.

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.

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.

You're Asking Me How Not To Doubt. Good Question.my Answer Is, You Can't. This Is Life

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.

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.

If You Are Not At Peace With Yourself Then You Cannot Spread Peace.

I Focus On Islamic Applied Ethics In Many Fields, And Here I Am Saying That Coming Back To The Qu'ran And The Sunnah As Our Reference Point Does Not Mean That We Depend For Our Ethics On 'islam As Opposed To The Others'.

It Is Like Using A Smoke Screen, The Same Thing For An Individual. The Topic Here Is Islam. If French Politicians Are No Longer Talking About Islam, They Know They Will Have To Talk About Something Else, Which Brings The Spotlight On Their Inefficiency. They Will Have To Talk About Domestic Social And Economic Issues And They Will Have To Justify Their Foreign Policy, Which Is Obviously Something They Need To Avoid At All Costs.

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

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

There Must Be A Very Clear Understanding That You Cannot Work For Peace If You Are Not Ready To Struggle. And This Is The Very Meaning Of Jihad: To Manage Your Intention To Get Your Inner Peace When It Comes To The Spiritual Journey. In Our Society, That Means Face Injustice And Hypocrisy, Face The Dictators, The Exploiters, The Oppressors If You Want To Free The Oppressed, If You Want Peace Based On Justice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This Simple Truth Is The Essence Of My Message To Muslims Throughout The World: Know Who You Are, Who You Want To Be, And Start Talking And Working With Whom You Are Not. Find Common Values And Build With Fellow Citizens A Society Based On Diversity And Equality.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

We Want To Tell People How Great Islam Is Yet We Are Not Great Muslims.

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.

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.

The Singularity Of Islam Is Its Universality. As American Citizens And As Muslims, You Need To Show There Is Something Specific, Namely Our Moral Singularity. We Believe There Is One God And This One God Is Pushing Us To Reach Universal Values By Liberating Ourselves From Our Ego And By Serving Humanity. We Must Be Involved In This By All Means Necessary, In A Nonviolent Way, Through The Legal, Media, Economic And Cultural Systems. We Cannot Achieve This If There Is No Courage, If We Are Not Ready To Sacrifice.

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

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

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

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.

What I'm Advocating Is An Intellectual Revolution - It's A Different Mindset Concerning The Ethical Benchmarks By Which We Live.

Political Rhetoric Leads Only To Confusion.

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.

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 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.

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.

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

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

Behind Every Great Man

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.

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

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.

The West Hasn't Been Naïve, It Has Been Patronizing The South By Imposing Its Own Views On What Should Be Done - Ironically After Having Been So Close And So Supportive Of Dictators Who Were Not Respecting The People.

I Can See Both Trends Among The Youths: People Who Are Ready For A Constructive, Critical And Active Presence, And Others Who Are Ready To Become Invisible Muslims And To Compromise To Be Accepted. I Put My Hope In The Former And Pray For The Latter.

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

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.

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."

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.

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

I Don't Like What You`re Doing, But I Won't Insult You. Why? Because Who You Are Tomorrow May Be Better Than Who I Am Today

We Always Think From Where We Come From. We Always Think From The Sources That Shape Our Understanding. I Think About The World Through The Lens Of My Islamic Tradition. I Accept This But I Must Also Have Intellectual Humility.

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.

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

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.

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