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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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The Question About The

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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

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.

There Is Nothing More Islamic Than Critical Thinking.

Critical Thinking

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Every Country In Europe Needs Immigrants For Its Economic Survival.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 Have Never, So Far, In All The Studies I Have Done, Met A Contradiction Between What The Human, Experimental And Natural Sciences Are Telling Us And The Islamic Rules. In Fact, The Opposite Is True: Anything That Is Coming From The Modern Sciences Is Helping Me Better Understand The Text. It's Not A Contradiction. It's A Relation.

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

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Islam, As A Religion, Has Been Established In France For A Long Time, And The Religious Question Has Been Resolved In This Country. Islam Does Not Threaten France's Future In Any Way.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Victim Mentality

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

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

Proud To Be A Muslim Isn't A Stamp You Have On Your Heart, It's A Light You Have In Your Heart.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

And The Crowd Often Betrayed The People

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

As Muslims The Way We Show Respect To The Creator Is By Respecting Creation And This Is Why We Have To Reconcile Ourselves With The Objectives Of The Revelation And The Objective Is Really To Honor Nature As Part Of Creation.

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 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.

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.

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.

Fasting Is, First And Foremost, An Exercise For Identifying And Managing Adversity In All Its Forms. With Faith, In Full Conscience, Fasting Calls Women And Men To An Extra Degree Of Self-awareness.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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

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

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

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.

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

Behind Every Great Man

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.

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.

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.

The Month Of Ramadan Is The World's Most Widespread Fast And Yet Its Teachings Are Minimised, Neglected And Even Betrayed (through Literal Application Of Rules That Overlooks Their Ultimate Objective).

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.

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

Intellectual Humility

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.

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?

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

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 Question About The Salafi Is An Important Question As I Say In Arab Awakening, And Have Often Repeated Since. I Am Really Underlining The Importance Of This, Because We Really Don't Have Very Good Memories. Remember - The Taliban In Afghanistan Were Not At All Politicised In The Beginning. They Were Just On About Education. And Then They Were Pushed By The Saudi And The Americans To Be Against The Russian Colonisation, And As A Result They Came To Be Politicised.

I Wanted To Understand. I'm Not Here To Support One, But I Am Here To Criticize All, On A Principled Position. I Very Much Value The Position Of Counter Power. I Think This Is Where Ethics Should Be, In Front Of Power As I Said In Radical Reform. The Power Of Counter-power Is Very Important.

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

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

Times Have Changed

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Changing The World

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Most Dangerous Prisons Are Those With Invisible Bars

Our Pluralist Society Must Provide Its Citizens With The Tools To Understand Religions, Their Symbols And Their Practices.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

We Integrate The Good Wherever We Find It.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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