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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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The Dogmatic And, Therefore,

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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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.

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

Lack Of Consistency Is A Weakness Shared By All Nations.

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

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

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

To Be Courageous Is To Be A Voice For The Voiceless

Every Country In Europe Needs Immigrants For Its Economic Survival.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Need Modesty Not Only In The Way We Dress; We Need Intellectual Modesty.

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

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

When I Came Here [to Malaysia] I Heard That There Is A Problem With The Concept Of Pluralism Whereby Pluralism Is Understood In A Very Narrow Way, Which I Think Is Wrong. This Is Not To Diminish Your Sense Of Truth In What You Believe But To Acknowledge The Fact That We Live In A World Where We Need To Deal With Pluralism. It's A Fact.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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 Should Say To The West: "you Have Been Supporting Dictators For Too Many Years. Don't Expect The People To Introduce Democracy Over Night. It Is Going To Take Time." It Took Time With The French Revolution, It Took Time With The Eastern European Revolutions. And It Is Going To Take Time There.

Modesty Is The Way You Deal With Beauty Not The Way You Avoid It.

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.

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

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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.

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

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."

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

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.

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

There Is Nothing More Islamic Than Critical Thinking.

Critical Thinking

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.

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

Behind Every Great Man

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.

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 Must Delve Deep Into History The Better To Engage A True Dialogue Of Civilisations. Fear Of The Present Can Impose Upon The Past Its Own Biased Vision.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

I Talk To The Young Generation And Advise Them To Be Both Fully Muslim And Fully Western Citizens, To Be Free, To Speak Out, To Express Themselves. We Have New Generations Of Muslims Who Were Born In The West, Coming From Within, And They Are Well Educated And They Understand. Some Sisters And Brothers Are Ready, Yes, Even Though I Can See Young Sisters And Brothers Who Are Also Obsessed With Their Social Status, Their Titles, Their Salary And Are Scared To Not Be Tolerated.

Young Generation

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.

I Opposed The Fatwa Against Salman Rushdie. I Read The Book And Took A Critical Distance. I Did Not Think The Satanic Verses Is A Blasphemous Book. I Did Not Consider The Book As Being A Great Read, But As An Intellectual I Read, I Assess, And I Respond. I Make A Difference Between True Freedom Of Expression To Which We Owe A Response And Provocation, Which We Ignore.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

One Does Not Always Know How To Express The Sorrow Of The Soul. One Does Not Always Know How To Silence The Joy Of The Heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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.

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.

Culture Constitutes An Essential Element Of Social And Political Liberation. As People Rise Up Across The Middle East And North Africa, The Diversity Of Their Cultures Is Not Only The Means But Also The Ultimate Goal Of Their Liberation And Their Freedom.

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.

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.

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

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

Intellectual Modesty Is Humility As To What I Know; Intellectual Humility Is Modesty As To What I Do Not Know

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.

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

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.

I Want To Be An Activist Professor.

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 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.

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?

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.

Unsettled Middle East, In These Times Where The People Are Trying To Find Their Way Towards Democracy, Could Be Interesting For Many Reasons - For Weapons To Be Sold, For New Geostrategic Interests To Be Protected, And Something That We Are Not Talking About, Which Is The Israeli-palestinian Conflict. The People Who Are Lost In The Whole Discussion Here Are The Palestinians. We Have Demonstrations In Palestine In West Bank. Nobody Is Covering This. It's As If They Don't Exist Anymore. And This Is, In Fact, Central. And Israel Is Silent.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Good Muslim Is Not One Who Is Strictest In His Judgment, But Who Is Most Patient In Listening.

Do Not Respond To Attacks With Attacks. Respond With Mercy & Respect

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Black And White

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

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

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

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

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

Changing The World

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

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

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

There Is No Faith, Without A Critical Mind

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

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

I Am Talking About Anything That Is A Provocation - Ignore It. When Something Falls Under Freedom Of Expression, You Can Read It And Take A Critical Distance.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

Prayer Is Better Than To Sleep. Wake Up. Wake Up & Pray. This Is The Way You Free Yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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