Islam Quotes

Let me also again emphasize that it is only within Islam that Sufism can be practiced. The two have never been separated from each other in their reality and in fact are inwardly one, and certainly they have never been separated for me throughout my life. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

It's possible to be flippant here, when Jihadists fly aircraft into buildings they shout God is Great, what do atheists shout when they do it? ~ Martin Amis

I don't find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists. I believe religion is the root, and from the root fundamentalism grows as a poisonous stem. If we remove fundamentalism and keep religion, then one day or another fundamentalism will grow again. I need to say that because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems. But Islam itself oppresses women. Islam itself doesn't permit democracy and it violates human rights. ~ Taslima Nasrin

The world is on fire with hate- everyone is blaming one another saying that religion is responsible for it!
In all honesty, hate has no fate.
But greed does it needs money, its faith. ~ Zarina Bibi

Some of the toughest ayaat in the Quran have Allah's name "ar-Rahman" in them to make it clear that just because Allah is the Most Merciful, it doesn't mean He's not going to carry out justice. ~ Nouman Ali Khan

It is ... idle to pretend, as many do, that there is no contradiction between religion and science. Science contradicts religion as surely as Judaism contradicts Islam-they are absolutely and irresolvably conflicting views. Unless, that is, science is obliged to change its fundamental nature. ~ Bryan Appleyard

If you want to sing out, sing out, and if you want to be free, be free, cause there's a million ways to be, you know that there are. ~ Yusuf Islam

Today, Islam effectively resists secularization primarily because of its use of shame. Within the community, each person's sexuality is tied to his or her family and to the community. To violate the sexual rules of Allah violates both the family and the community. This powerful distortion allows Islam to remain isolated from secular sexual influences. The terror of social sanction or violence keeps young people from following their heart. It prevents healthy sexual exploration and development in men and women. ~ Darrel Ray

My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents. If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination. Mutatis mutandis if you were born in Afghanistan. ~ Richard Dawkins

When I was writing 'The Satanic Verses,' if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal. ~ Salman Rushdie

American liberals today are hesitant to speak out against the denial of rights that is perpetrated in the name of Islam. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Islam's not just about covering your hair. It's about how you treat other people. ~ Bassem Youssef

Ten years ago a book appeared in France called D'Une foi l'autre, les conversions a l'Islam en Occident. The authors, both career journalists, carried out extensive interviews with new Muslims in Europe and America. Their conclusions are clear. Almost all educated converts to Islam come in through the door of Islamic spirituality. In the middle ages, the Sufi tariqas were the only effective engine of Islamisation in Muslim minority areas like Central Asia, India, black Africa and Java; and that pattern is maintained today.

Why should this be the case? Well, any new Muslim can tell you the answer. Westerners are in the first instance seeking not a moral path, or a political ideology, or a sense of special identity - these being the three commodities on offer among the established Islamic movements. They lack one thing, and they know it - the spiritual life. Thus, handing the average educated Westerner a book by Sayyid Qutb, for instance, or Mawdudi, is likely to have no effect, and may even provoke a revulsion. But hand him or her a collection of Islamic spiritual poetry, and the reaction will be immediately more positive. It is an extraordinary fact that the best-selling religious poet in modern America is our very own Jalal al-Din Rumi. Despite the immeasurably different time and place of his origin, he outsells every Christian religious poet.

Islam and the New Millennium ~ Abdal Hakim Murad

It is often said that Islam is an egalitarian religion. There is much truth in this assertion. If we compare Islam at the time of its advent with the societies that surrounded it - the stratified feudalism of Iran and the caste system of India to the east, the privileged aristocracies of both Byzantine and Latin Europe to the west - the Islamic dispensation does indeed bring a message of equality. Not only does Islam not endorse such systems of social differentiation; it explicitly and resolutely rejects them. The actions and utterances of the Prophet, the honored precedents of the early rulers of Islam as preserved by tradition, are overwhelmingly against privilege by descent, by birth, by status, by wealth, or even by race, and insist that rank and honor are determined only by piety and merit in Islam. ~ Bernard Lewis

You may still be here tomorrow ... but your dreams may not. ~ Yusuf Islam

Allah, Most High, has truly blessed us. He has created just for us the mysterious spirit that He has breathed into us and by so doing distinguished us from all other physical creation. He has adorned us with our incomparable intellect, which further distinguishes us from all else in this creation. What other creature on this planet -another gift He has blessed us with- can even begin to create the likes of this Internet? Will we not stop, give thanks to our Merciful and Generous Lord? Will we not stop and realize how precious our lives are and begin to show each other more love, mercy, kindness and empathy? Will we not stop, take time, and reflect? ~ Imam Zaid Shakir

Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. ~ Maajid Nawaz

Education is our basic right. Not just in the West; Islam too has given us this right. Islam says every girl and every boy should go to school. In the Quran it is written, God wants us to have knowledge. He wants us to know why the sky is blue and about oceans and stars. I know it's a big struggle - around the world there are fifty-seven million children who are not in primary school, thirty-two million of them girls. ~ Malala Yousafzai

From predator-prey models (the so-called Lotka-Volterra type of population dynamics), I knew that populations will experience Extremistan-style variability, hence predators will necessarily go through periods of feast and famine. That's us, humans-we had to have been designed to experience extreme hunger and extreme abundance. So our food intake had to have been fractal. Not a single one of those promoting the "three meals a day," "eat in moderation" idea has tested it empirically to see whether it is healthier than intermittent fasts followed by large feasts.

But Near Eastern religions (Judaism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity) knew it, of course-just as they knew the need for debt avoidance-and so they had fast days. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Events. Events in response to other events. Think about it. Nothing since the big bang has happened without a reason. And even the big bang might have come from something, because of something. One thing makes another thing, and then that thing makes the next thing. Look at these kids. These two brothers, still kids. They don't know themselves yet. They are acting in response, in reaction, passionate reaction to something that set them off, made them commit to violence. They would not be here if the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. The United States would not have had fertile ground for the lie it told about Irag, weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein, etc., etc., if not for Osama bin Laden and 9/11. Osama bin Laden would not have been able to recruit those men to learn how to fly planes and then crash them into buildings if not for propaganda about the persecution of the global Muslims, Afghanistan after the Russian invasion, Chechnya in the nineties, Bosnian genocides, or any instance of Islam under attack by the West, one culture trying to extinguish another. History is always a story of cause and effect. ~ Laleh Khadivi

If the Qur'an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day. ~ Christopher Hitchens

You can still see the shadow from when the Zeppelin floated over America; it took like Islam in the desert ... ~ Michael Herr

Years ago, a Muslim woman called my radio show and asked me why I was not a Muslim. She asked this question with complete sincerity, and I answered her with equal sincerity.
The name of her religion, I told her, is Islam, which in Arabic means submission (to God). The name of the Jewish people is Israel, which in Hebrew means struggle with God. I'd rather struggle with God, I said, than only submit to God.
She thanked me and hung up. The answer apparently satisfied her.
Arguing/struggling with God is not only Jewishly permitted, it is central to the Torah and later Judaism. In this regard, as in others, the Torah is unique. In no other foundational religious text of which I am aware is arguing with God a religious expectation. The very first Jew, Abraham, argues with God, as does the greatest Jew, Moses. (It is worth noting that though Muslims consider Abraham their father as well, arguing with God has no place in the Quran or in normative Islam.)
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this Jewish concept. For one thing, it enabled Jews to believe in the importance of reason - God Himself could be challenged on the basis of reason and morality; one does not have to suspend reason to be a believing Jew. Indeed, it assured Jews that belief in God was itself the apotheosis of reason. For another, it had profound psychological benefits to Jews. We do not have to squelch our questioning of, or even our anger at, God. One can be both religious and real ~ Dennis Prager

It took many years to cleanse Arabia of its "false idols." It will take many more to cleanse Islam of its new false idols - bigotry and fanaticism - worshipped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it. ~ Reza Aslan

I desired to praise the Chosen One and was hindered
By my own inability to grasp the extent of his glory.

How can one such as I measure an ocean, when the ocean is vast?
And how can one such as I count the stones and the stars?

If all of my limbs were to become tongues, even then –
Even then I could not begin to praise him as I desired.

And if all of creation gathered together in an attempt
To praise him, even then they would stint in his due.

I have altogether ceased trying – awestruck, clinging to courtesy,
Tempered by timidity, glorifying his most exalted rank.

Indeed, sometimes silence holds within it the essence of eloquence,
And often speech merely fodder for the faultfinder. ~ Ibn Juzayy Al-Kalbi

The future lies in unity and respect, not division and stereotypes ~ Abdullah II Of Jordan

But later that night, as I brush my teeth in the bathroom, I overhear Baba and Thaya Jaan talking in the guest room next door. "

All this music all the time. You shouldn't let Amina do so much singing and piano," Thaya Jaan says.

I stop brushing and strain to hear every word, trying to follow.

"But, Bhai Jaan, she is so talented. Her music teachers say she is really quite gifted."

"Yes, but music is forbidden in Islam. It's a waste of time and has no benefit. Instead of filling her head with music, she should focus on memorizing Quran."

The toothpaste suddenly tastes bitter. I spit it out and wait to hear what Baba will say. Surely he'll say the things he's always told me, like how music makes him feel closer to God and that my talent is a gift from Allah.

But all Baba says is, "Yes, Bhai Jaan," and then he stays quiet.

I am numb. Is Thaya Jaan right? Am I doing something wrong? ~ Hena Khan

Some Libertarians argue that Western occupation fans the flames of radical Islam; I agree. But I don't agree that, absent Western occupation, that radical Islam 'goes quietly into that good night.' ~ Rand Paul

The Bush administration does not desire to see Islam practiced in its pristine purity. ~ Louis Farrakhan

The only religion with God is Islam ~ Yaqub Khan

Sooner or later we must absorb Islam if our own culture is not to die of anemia. ~ Basil Bunting

In this work (peace building), the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God, ... But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. ~ Pope Francis

I think that rather than condemning Islam, Islam needs to be studied by those who are sincere. ~ Louis Farrakhan

Abraham is the shared ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He stands at the heart of these three faiths. And yet you know almost nothing about him. ~ Bruce Feiler

It's almost impossible to deal with a crazy man, except that he does have religious beliefs, and the world of Islam will be damaged if a fanatic like him should commit murder in the name of religion against 60 innocent people. ~ Ruhollah Khomeini

When Allah makes us aware of a sin we committed, He is not punishing us, but rather inviting us toward His presence. In this way, the moment we are drawn to sincere repentance, we are in effect unveiling the forgiveness that Allah has already written for us to experience. Someone asked the great eighth-century mystic Rabia Al-Adawiyya, "I have sinned much; if I repent, will Allah forgive me?" She profoundly replied, "It is the opposite; if Allah forgives you, you are capable of repentance. ~ A. Helwa

He philosophy of Islam will be shown in terms of the modern philosophy, and if there are imperfections in the old ideas then they shall be removed. My task is merely constructive, and in this construction I shall take into consideration the best traditions of Islamic philosophy. ~ Muhammad Iqbal

Though the white man is a kind of Satan, and though the black man is Satan for selling his own children into bondage and assassinating the image of his own mother, because he himself wants to be white'I can assure you that Africa has known no greater Satan than the twins, Arab and Islam. ~ Kola Boof

True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete. ~ Malcolm X

Before the revolution I thought there are appropriate individuals who would do the job according to Islam, therefore I repeatedly said that clerics would go after their own job. Then I saw that most of them were inappropriate individuals and I found out that what I said was not true, so I came and clearly announced that I was wrong. ~ Ruhollah Khomeini

One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized and most coherent groupings in society. They constitute ready-made organizations - social-based NGOs, if you will - for maintaining Islamic culture and practices under periods of extreme oppression and for fomenting resistance and guerrilla warfare against foreign occupation. The history of Sufi participation in dozens of liberation struggles is long and widespread across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sufi groups were prominent in the anti-Soviet resistance, and later against the American in Afghanistan and against US occupation forces in Iraq. ~ Graham Fuller

Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself. ~ Idries Shah

For the Qur'ān, it is neither strange nor out of tune nor blameworthy for a prophet
that he is not always consistent as a human. It is nevertheless as a human that he
becomes an example for mankind, for his average level of conduct is still so high that it is a worthy model for mankind. ~ Fazlur Rahman

America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others. ~ Parker Palmer

When it comes to training imams, one needs a partner. But if we want the mosques to preach peaceful coexistence, we will have to do something about it. One goal of the conference is to find a partner for the training of imams and teachers of Islam in schools. ~ Wolfgang Schauble

It is the Muslim's conception of himself as the khulifa of Allah on the earth that makes him the vortex of human history. Only as God's khulifa, and hence only in proper commitment to the vision of Islam, may man act responsibly in the totality of space-time. ~ Ismail Al-Faruqi

Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems. ~ Aly Khan

We sometimes fail to realise that when we pray to Allah we are in fact performing a great act of ibadah (worship). On the surface it might seem as if we are asking out of self-interest, but we are really proving the sincerity of our belief in the tauhid (Oneness) of Allah and our submission to the True God. Thus the Prophet pbuh said: "Supplication is itself the worship." (Reported by Abu Daud and al-Tirmizi, sahih.) If a servant prays the whole night to Allah, he therefore performs a great ibadah all night long. ~ Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin

... the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

The purpose of man's creation is that he do good in the world, not substitute
himself for God and think that he can make and unmake the moral law at his own
convenience and for his own selfish and narrow ends. This is the difference between
physical laws and the moral law - the one is to be used and put to service; the other
must be obeyed and served. For God says ~ Fazlur Rahman

To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[ ... ] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death. ~ Salman Rushdie

You notice how liberals keep saying, 'If only Islam would have a Reformation' - it can't have one. It says it can't. It's extremely dangerous in that way. ~ Christopher Hitchens

We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world. ~ Ruhollah Khomeini

Must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter people's perceptions of Muslims. Minds are not changed merely through acquiring data or information (if that were the case it would take no effort to convince Americans that Obama is, in fact, a Christian). Rather, it is solely through the slow and steady building of personal relationships that one discovers the fundamental truth that all people everywhere have the same dreams and aspirations, that all people struggle with the same fears and anxieties. Of course, such a process takes time. It may take another generation or so for this era of anti-Muslim frenzy to be looked back upon with the same shame and derision with which the current generation views the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish hysterics of the past. But that day will no doubt come. Perhaps then we will recognize the intimate connections that bind us all together beyond any cultural, ethnic, or religious affiliations. Inshallah. God willing. ~ Reza Aslan

This struggle between good and evil, fresh and stale, new and decrepit,
between the vigor of moral youth and the dotage of senility, is of positive benefit, for it keeps the perennial moral values alive ~ Fazlur Rahman

So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There's no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn't work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn't say, 'Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.' In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That's what perfect justice is." I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. "But I thought God is forgiving. You're implying that because of justice, God can't forgive." "God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I'm saying is that God's desire to forgive doesn't negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God's justice demands it. ~ David Gregory

Sister Aziza told us about the Jews. She described them in such a way that I imagined them as physically monstrous: they had horns on their heads, and noses so large they stuck right out of their faces like great beaks. Devils and djinns literally flew out of their heads to mislead Muslims and spread evil. Everything that went wrong was the fault of the Jews. The Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein, who had attacked the Islamic Revolution in Iran, was a Jew. The Americans, who were giving money to Saddam, were controlled by the Jews. The Jews controlled the world, and that was why we had to be pure: to resist this evil influence. Islam was under attack, and we should step forward and fight the Jews, for only if all Jews were destroyed would peace come for Muslims. I ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Udru, a language common among India's Muslims, exhibits Arabic, Persian, Turkic and Indian influences. Its name derives from the Turkic word "ordu", meaning army, since it was at the Turkic army camps that these four languages intermingled. ~ Firas Alkhateeb

Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes. ~ Jim Butcher

In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed ~ Barack Obama

We have the deepest respect and reverence for Islam and all who share the faith of Islam. ~ Jimmy Carter

I started to see the bigger picture of things: Islam was not relegated to the tiny, sometimes frustrating and seemingly arbitrary details of practice, but rather entered the larger picture of spirituality and worship that contextualized my womanhood. In order to be able to derive these logical conclusions about my religion, I had to go back to the basics and understand the very fundamental principles upon which it was founded: justice, social equality, racial equality, financial equality, and, possibly most important of all, gender equality. Thus began my lifelong love affair with Islamic feminism. ~ Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. ~ Osama Bin Laden

Ruth and I often share the stories that we have heard and the things that we have learned to help the western church and many of its congregations grasp a new, and perhaps more biblical, perspective on suffering and persecution in our faith. We share often about how suffering and persecution relate to our faith. We desperately want our western brothers and sisters in Christ to realize that the greatest enemy of our faith today is not communism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, or even Islam. Our greatest enemy is lostness. Lostness is the terrible enemy that Jesus commissioned His followers to vanquish with the battle strategy that He spelled out for them in Matthew 28:18-20. He was addressing this same enemy when He plainly clarified His purpose in coming: 'I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.' Our hope is that believers around the world will get close enough to the heart of God that the first images that come to mind when we heard the word 'Muslim' are not Somali pirates or suicide bombers or violent jihadists or even terrorists. When we hear the word 'Muslim,' we need to see and think of each and every individual Muslim as a lost person who is loved by God. We need to see each Muslim as a person in need of God's grace and forgiveness. We need to see each Muslim as someone for whom Christ died. ~ Nik Ripken

Wherefore should I not offer my congratulations? But the very fact of them being Sayyids, those fountains of felicity, demands heartly exertions in support of Islam and their ancestor Muhammad the Lord of Apostles. Let two Kaftans of honor for the two brothers be issued from my wardrobe and let them be sent with two swords, jewel-hilted and provided with pearl mounted belts, let Jamdat-ul-Mulk write much praise and congratulations when sending these presents. ~ Aurangzeb

The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West ... The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides. ~ Aga Khan IV

Islam will be destroyed by the mistakes of scholars, the arguments of the hypocrites who misinterpret the Qur'an to support their views and misleading rulers. ~ Umar

The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal - God is the Omnipotent Father - hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. - GORE VIDAL ~ Richard Dawkins

Money and riches don't mean nothing to me. I don't care nothing about being no rich individual. I'm not living for glory or for fame; all this is doomed for destruction. You got it today, tomorrow it's gone. I got bigger things on my mind than that. I got Islam on my mind. ~ Muhammad Ali

In describing the ways that religious and other types of communities appropriate and understand their histories, among both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, the sociologist Anthony Giddens utilizes the term "reflexivity" and states that it is the characteristic of "all human action." Reflexivity takes place when individuals and/or communities utilize their perceptions of their histories as a way of guiding their present and future actions. For Giddens, tradition is a means of "handling time and space, which asserts any particular activity or experience with the community of past, present, and future, these in turn being structured by recurrent social practices." In light of this, tradition is a set of entities which religious communities and cultures continually reconstruct within certain parameters. Religions are not completely static in that almost every new generation reinvents the religious and cultural inheritance from the generations that preceded it. ~ Jon Armajani

For the believer, participating in ritual activity is a 're-enactment of profound truth,' that which makes one belong to a belief system drawing the believer and the community of believers near to God. Yet despite its central role, the essence of a religious belief cannot be grasped by simply observing ritual practice. Ritual can mark, identify and separate a community of believers, it can point to what is held most sacred in terms of rites and worship, but it can never quite capture faith, for faith transcends form and imagery. This is particularly true of Islam, where faith is presented a a gradual process from Islam (surrender) to iman (faith) to the final state of ihsan (doing good). Belief in God is a deeper state of awareness, of conviction and of humility, all of which ultimately lie beyond ritual. ~ Mona Siddiqui

We as Muslims do not read history of Islam. We are busy in creating our own version. ~ Nighat Hafiz

I don't like it when Christianity and western cultures are used as propaganda to sway impoverished Muslims into becoming self-detonating radicals. ~ Tucker Elliot

I think the American people pretty well understand that radical Islam has an agenda that includes us. ~ Lindsey Graham

Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past. ~ Karen Armstrong

Women that speak against Islam are being labelled as islamophobic, as though our right to free speech is disregarded, when it comes down to an oppressive regime, which does not even recognise women as human... ~ Anita B. Sulser PhD

We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God, and I believe it [Islam] is a very evil and wicked religion ... When you read the Koran and you read the verses from the Koran, it instructs the killing of the infidel, for those that are non-Muslim. ~ Franklin Graham

When the British Empire turned their back on millions of Irish dying during the Great Famine, Muslim nations sent food relief. ~ Fuad Alakbarov

even if Noam Chomsky were right about everything, the Islamic doctrines related to martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, apostasy, the rights of women and homosexuals, etc. would still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society (and these are problems quite unlike those presented by similar tenets in other faiths, for reasons that I have explained at length elsewhere and touch on only briefly here). And any way in which I might be biased or blinded by "the religion of the state," or any other form of cultural indoctrination, has absolutely no relevance to the plight of Shiites who have their mosques, weddings, and funerals bombed by Sunni extremists, or to victims of rape who are beaten, imprisoned, or even killed as "adulteresses" throughout the Muslim world. I hope it goes without saying that the Afghan girls who even now are risking their lives by merely learning to read would not be best compensated for their struggles by being handed copies of Chomsky's books enumerating the sins of the West ~ Sam Harris

Death comes to everyone. We must stand proud as Afghans in the defense of Islam. ~ Mohammed Omar

We are free, in the West, to choose; we have real choice to pursue our own desires; we are free to set the goals and contents of our own lives; the West is made up of individuals who are free to decide what meaning to give to their lives-in short the glory of the West is that life is an open book,[1] while under Islam, life is a closed book, everything has been decided for you: God and the Holy Law set limits on the possible agenda of your life. ~ Ibn Warraq

Islam believes in many prophets, and Al Quran is nothing but a confirmation of the old Scriptures. ~ Annie Besant

A thousand ways every day, the white man is telling you "You can't live here, you can't enter here, you can't eat here, drink here, walk here, work here, you can't ride here, you can't play here, you can't study here." Haven't we seen enough to see that he has no plan to *unite* with you? ~ Malcolm X

When I was older, I found Iqbal's work hugely inspirational. He argued against an unquestioning acceptance of Western democracy as the self-governing model, and instead suggested that by following the rules of Islam a society would tend naturally towards social justice, tolerance, peace and equality. Iqbal's interpretation of Islam differs very widely from the narrow meaning that is sometimes given to it. For Iqbal, Islam is not just the name for certain beliefs and forms of worship. The difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is not merely a theological one - it is a difference of a fundamental attitude towards life. ~ Imran Khan

The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement gave black America a burst of pride over and above anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey. ~ John Henrik Clarke

The religion of Islam is growing faster than any other religion in the world. ~ Mike Wallace

On a day when secrets shall be out
The man shall have no power nor any helper. ~ Various

In relation to Monotheism considered as such, Judaism stabilized but "confiscated" the Message; Christianity universalized but "altered" it; Islam in turn restored it by stabilizing and universalizing it. ~ Frithjof Schuon

A non-Muslim is a second-class citizen called a Kafir. You and I are Kafirs. Much of the Koran concerns itself with the Kafir - how to control us, to subjugate us and to kill us. "Islam has the mind of a psychopathic rapist and because its founder, the "prophet" Mohammed was in fact a psychopathic rapist himself. ~ Eric Allen

Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all ... There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of Mohammed] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim! ~ Ruhollah Khomeini

Amar was made conscious in an instant of a presence in the air, something which had been there all the time, but which he had never isolated and identified. The thing was in him, he was a part of it, as was the man opposite him, and it was a part of them; it whispered to them that time was short, that the world they lived in was approaching its end, and beyond was unfathomable darkness. It was the premonition of inevitable defeat and annihilation, and it had always been there with them and in them, as intangible and as real as the night around them. Amar pulled two loose cigarettes out of his pocket and handed one to the potter. "Ah, the Moslems, the Moslems!" he sighed. "Who knows what's going to happen to them? ~ Paul Bowles

The real Muslim is the one who prefers speaking the truth even when it is ruinous to him over lying even when it benefits him, and who finds inner peace in doing so. ~ Ali Ibn Abi Talib

In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education. ~ Barack Obama

Not being interested in other cultures is the normal state of mankind. ~ Bernard Lewis

The principles of Islam teach us to be messengers of peace - to be like water, gentle enough to wash away tears and strong enough to drown hatred. To be Muslim is to protect the weak, the orphan, the beggar, the disabled of all races and cultures. To be Muslim is not to be color-blind, but to see the differences between people and to celebrate that diversity as a product of the free will that God chose to give us. As the Qur'an says, "And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge" (30:22) ~ A. Helwa

The Muslim call to prayer is one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset. ~ Barack Obama

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. ~ Tariq Ramadan

And this presence of the Spirit will enlighten not only yellow skin people or white skin people but even black skin people. I believe in the last days the Spirit of God will be poured out in the nations of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Because Jesus Christ is the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Universe. Amen. ~ Brother Yun