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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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The Problem With Salafis

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

Even The Concept Of The Infidel Is Misleading, Because The Infidel Is Normally Someone With A Different Faith, Someone Who Refuses To Recognize The Truth Of The Words Of The Koran, As Revealed By God. He Has Every Right To Do So, As Long As He Does Not Question My Right To Believe In My Truth.

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'.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Changing The World

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.

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.

The More I Know, The Best I Believe. The More I Know, The Best I'm Worshiping Him. Because, In The End Allah Knows The Best.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Times Have Changed

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

And The Crowd Often Betrayed The People

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Intellectual 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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Changing The World

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

"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.

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.

Every Country In Europe Needs Immigrants For Its Economic Survival.

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.

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

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

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

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

The 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Political Confusion Starts With Terminology Confusion.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

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 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.

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

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.

There Is Nothing More Islamic Than Critical Thinking.

Critical Thinking

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Victim Mentality

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.

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

Black And White

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

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

Fear And Its Accompanying Emotional Reactions Have Become Part Of The Public Mindset. Such Reactions, While Often Legitimate, Are Also Being Exploited With Increasing Frequency For Political Ends.

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

We Have To Be The Media When Media Is Silent

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.

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.

To Be Courageous Is To Be A Voice For The Voiceless

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

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

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.

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

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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

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

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

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

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.

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

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 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.

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