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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.

-Tariq Ramadan

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This Simple Truth Is

Tariq Ramadan

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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.

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

In Ramadan, You Should Eat Less And Think More.

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

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

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.

One Would Love Nonetheless To Know How To Be A Man, How To Be A Woman Before God, In The Mirror Of One's Own Conscience, In The Looks Of Those Who Surround Us. One Would Wish To Find The Strength To Beautify One's Thoughts And To Purify One's Heart. It Is Everyone's Hope And Expectation To Live In Serenity And To Plod Along In Transparency: The Palms Of The Hands Patiently Directed Towards Heaven, At The Heart Of All This Modernity.

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

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

Changing The World

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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'.

Stand Up For Your Values, Be Courageous And Humble

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

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.

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

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.

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

Behind Every Great Man

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Victim Mentality

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

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

Political Confusion Starts With Terminology Confusion.

Jihadists Are Acting Against The Interests Of Every Single Country.

We Need More Citizens That Are Committed And Courageous.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Want To Be An Activist Professor.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

We 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.

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 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.

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

There Is No Faith, Without A Critical Mind

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.

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

A Muslim Should Be Sincerely Religious And Politically Aware.

This Is The Problem We Have With Many Muslim Leaders: They Claim To Differentiate Between Domestic And Foreign Issues And They Are Obsessed With Being Accepted, At Sitting At The Table Of Power In Order To Talk (or Rather To Listen) And To Be Tolerated. This Is The Starting Point Of Our Weakness. It Is In Our Minds Because We Do Not Realize We Are Part Of The System.

The Strength Of Democratic Societies Relies On Their Capacity To Know How To Stand Firm Against Extremism While Respecting Justice In The Means Used To Fight Terrorism.

There Is The Philosophy Embedded In The Culture We Are Living. It Is Quite Clear For Example That Arabs Have A Different Culture Than Malaysians.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Unfortunately There Are Some Trends That Are Changing This But You Don't Have For Example As Strict And Narrow Understanding Of The Relationship Between Men And Women. And Then There Is The Philosophy We Have To Extract In The Relationship Between Text And Culture.

In 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

In My Book Radical Reform I Made It Clear That We Cannot Talk About The Environment Or Ecology If We Don't Also Deal With The Economy. There Is A Direct Link Between How We Deal With The Economy And How We Deal With Nature.

The Most Dangerous Prisons Are Those With Invisible Bars

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

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

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

Saying That The Origin Of The Islamic State (is) Is Within The Muslim Brotherhood Organisation Only Strengthens Is. This Is What The Israeli Government Asserts When Claiming That Hamas And Is Are The Exact Same Thing. By Saying So, The Historical Resistance [against The Israeli Occupation] Is Viewed As Unlawful, Called Extremism And Terrorism.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Am Too Old To Think That Numbers Are Creating Change

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Only Way To Resist Colonialism Is Through Education.

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.

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

Changing The World

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

51% Of The French People - Who Are Not Very Religious - Were Thinking That What "charlie Hebdo" Did Was Unwise. They Aren't Asking For A Law To Prevent Charlie Hebdo From Publishing Caricatures, But They Are Calling On Its Editors To Be A Bit More Sensible.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

To Be Courageous Is To Be A Voice For The Voiceless

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.

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.

Your Country Needs Religious Leaders And Religious Politicians

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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 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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Can't Have Anything Happening Today Within The Petro-monarchies, Is Going To Be Too Risky For The United States And The Oil Interests There.

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.

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.

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