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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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The Muslim Contribution To

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Faith, Without A Critical Mind

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

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.

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

Changing The World

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Changing The World

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.

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 Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

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

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.

There Is Nothing More Islamic Than Critical Thinking.

Critical Thinking

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.

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 Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

We Should Not Fool Ourselves. When The Quran Says Wa La Qad Karamna Bani Adam ["we Have Honored The Children Of Adam"] So Yes We Should All Be Free But This Should Not Mean That We Must Act Against The Dignity Of Human Beings.

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

Times Have Changed

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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.

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.

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

"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.

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.

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Intellectual Humility

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

Political Confusion Starts With Terminology Confusion.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Black And White

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Behind Every Great Man

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.

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'.

Lack Of Consistency Is A Weakness Shared By All Nations.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Victim Mentality

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.

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

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

The 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.

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?

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

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.

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