Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Muslim Quotes from famous authors such as G. Willow Wilson, Cenk Uygur, Demba Ba, Fatema Mernissi, Tariq Ramadan. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!
1
In 2003, as a 21-year-old convert to Islam, I moved from Colorado to Cairo to see what life was like in a Muslim country.
2
You know you’re a bigot when you can’t take out the word ‘Muslim’ from a sentence you stated and replace it with ‘Jew’ and still have it be socially acceptable.
3
I know there are footballers who want to fight for justice, whether Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, any belief.
4
If women’s rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Quran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite.
5
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.
6
As an artist, I try and be controversial, and I have been a bit offensive at times. I have a view on the burka, and I’m sure a few of the Muslim girls and their families would have a view of me on stage in next to nothing!
7
Music, performance, and a woman is very rarely accepted within Muslim communities.
8
I’m a comedian who happens to be Muslim; my comedy stems on all forms of my identity.
9
The aim of militants such as Boko Haram, whose very name means ‘Western education is a sin,’ is to sow hatred and enmity between Muslim and Christian communities, which have co-existed largely peacefully for generations. Education, in particular the education of women, is a threat to Boko Haram’s goals.
10
Too often, when Muslim women speak out, some in our ‘community’ accuse us of ‘making our men look bad’ and of giving ammunition to right-wing Islamophobes.
11
Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka.
12
In adapting to life in the melting pot of America, I discovered that the same soft power of science has a huge influence in building bridges between cultures and religions – and has the potential to do so with the Muslim world.
13
I think people, especially in the Muslim community, are rightly cautious any time you hear, ‘Oh, there’s going to be a Muslim character.’
14
The Muslim Prophet Mohammed was a big believer in charity and firmly established helping those in need as a basis of the religion.
15
Since Sept. 11, many of the wars of our generation are in the Muslim world. So as a woman, I have access to 50 percent of the population that my male colleagues don’t.
16
There are no authentic reports in any of the Muslim books of history of the Prophet Muhammad punishing anyone for same-sex acts.
17
If you were asking me how it is to be a Muslim in America, it’s much harder to be a North African in France than to be a foreigner here in America.
18
Muslim clerics in India go to other countries, nobody knows what do they do, even the police can’t go there.
19
As a Muslim, I like to watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play ‘Call of Duty.’ Sometimes, I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family and heritage.
20
The international community is pushing things forward in Bosnia… but it is doing it at expense of the Muslim people. I feel it as an injustice, these are the things that I cannot live with.
21
I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned.
22
Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist. He’s not a radical jihadist. He’s not a radical Muslim. I mean, he was a – he was a Baathist. He was a secular – even though he professed to be a good and devout Muslim.
23
Before I go to those teams, I say, ‘Hey, I’m a Muslim and I have to pray five times a day.’ And they respect it so much that they give me a prayer room. So before the game, after the game, before practice, before I fly out, I can go to that room whenever I want and pray.
24
I’m a Muslim Egyptian-American, born in Cairo. I grew up in Kuwait until the first Gulf War, when my family relocated to the United Arab Emirates. As an adult, I studied and lived in the U.K. before moving to Boston.
25
My national identity is first American. My religious identity is first Muslim.
26
Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, a lot of the roles that I am offered are of Muslim characters, maybe because I looked a certain way in ‘Neerja.’ But I am actually Parsi.
27
We want to be, I think, an example for the rest of the Arab world, because there are a lot of people who say that the only democracy you can have in the Middle East is the Muslim Brotherhood.
28
Ten percent of the American population thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Those are the people that have not learned the skill of filtering information from the vast barrage of inaccurate information that we’re all faced with everyday. I think that’s a very 21st century skill.
29
The Muslim Brotherhood is much more hardline than Turkish Islamists.
30
The Muslim world is portrayed as a monolith that is consistently scary and negative, and as much as you can be an open-minded person, if the only diet of information you get is scary images of men in beards, that starts to play on you. But you come to find out that the Muslim world is not a monolith.
31
When you write about a Muslim woman, like I did with my previous novels – ‘Minaret’, for example, which is about a woman who starts to wear the hijab – it sets all the alarm bells ringing.
32
When we were getting married the Hindu way in Arrah, we had an old guest who asked my wife what her ‘good name’ was. I think she’d heard that I had married a Muslim. When my wife said, ‘Mona Ahmed Ali,’ the lady looked at me and exclaimed, ‘Oh, so you’ve married a terrorist.’
33
When I watch a TV show I wouldn’t notice if someone was Muslim or wearing a hijab. It’s nice to be on a show where your skin colour or religion is incidental.
34
People’s identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way – quite suddenly – to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.
35
Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than they’d like to admit, in that all of them very much want to see a role of religion in society.
36
While Muslim men describe themselves as insecure in their harems, real or imagined, Westerners describe themselves as self-assured heroes with no fears of women. The tragic dimension so present in Muslim harems – fear of women and male self-doubt – is missing in the Western harem.
37
Baalbek is so beautiful. It is the heart of beauty in the Middle East – I want to embrace these people with my music. I will try so hard for them. Their president is a Christian, their prime minister is a Muslim. Music is for everyone.
38
Liberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.
39
Syria’s population is 74% Sunni Muslim.
40
Any Westerner can now buy a Koran for a dollar and burn it, while any Muslim with a platform can transform that act into a fighting offense. As passions rise on both sides of the divide, Western provocateurs and Islamist hotheads have found each other, as confrontations occur with increasing frequency.
41
Sometimes it seems that what really worries the Israeli governments, even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, is the real Egypt.
42
It’s patently impossible for a Muslim character to represent ‘all Muslims.’
43
I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever your religion is, when you listen to a spiritual song and you really open your heart, you can feel it. You can feel the message of it. Just a simple story.
44
A lot of people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement are actually sticking up for those other lives. They are turning out for their Muslim brothers and sisters who are now being targeted.
45
I’m a good Muslim and I’m only interested in Islam.
46
It’s hard to imagine any Muslim fessing up to their secret proclivity for Sharia law knowing they would be deported if they gave the wrong answer.
47
Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
48
Many Muslim parents are authoritarian, which leaves young men and women with limited spaces to express themselves. Self-expression and autonomy are regarded as symptoms of ‘Westernisation.’
49
My father was Muslim, and my mom is Christian, and we moved from New Orleans to Oakland, so I always had this appreciation for different cultures.
50
Shah Rukh Khan should remember that if a huge mass in society would boycott his films, he will also have to wander on streets like a normal Muslim.
51
Virtually all of Darfur’s six million residents are Muslim, and, because of decades of intermarriage, almost everyone has dark skin and African features.
52
If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which Muslim countries’ freedom will remain a distant dream.
53
I don’t think being a Muslim or being a non-Muslim has been an advantage or disadvantage.
54
My faith and my identity as a Muslim – I never saw it as something that made my job harder. It’s just an aspect of who I am.
55
I did a play called ‘Disgraced’ in 2012 at Lincoln Center, which ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize. I played the lead character, a Muslim American, who had renounced Islam and became very anti-Islam.
56
The reality in Iraq is that we are creating new terrorists and severely damaging the public impression of the United States in the Muslim world.
57
I’m a woman of colour. I am the daughter of immigrants. I am a Muslim. I am a feminist. I am a lefty liberal.
58
In Arab Islamic society, it is traditionally taboo to criticize the lifestyle or personal philosophy of any practicing Muslim.
59
I am very grateful to our Muslim population. One of the things we’ve been doing is stepping up our inter-faith dialogue with the Muslim population. And I think that helped very much in their support for me.
60
One of the big mistakes of the Moroccan elite and the elite in the Muslim world was to be afraid of the conservatives. They are fighting for their ideas. Why shouldn’t we fight for our ideas?
61
Just because I am a Muslim doesn’t mean that I need to live in a certain way and sport a certain look.
62
We all have different causes that touch us emotionally and I believe anybody should fight for a cause they believe in. I’m a Muslim, I’m African, so certain causes will affect me more than they do other people.
63
I write about real life as it is lived by the young American Muslim women that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting throughout the course of my travels as a writer and being able to speak in different places and meet different people at signings and things.
64
No Muslim country has ever done as much as Turkey to make itself over in the image of a European nation-state; the country’s westernised elite brutally imposed secularism, among other things, on its devout population of peasants.
65
I tend not to believe radical Muslim movements.
66
Muslim women can save the world from ISIS.
67
Iraq was home of the Abbasid Caliphate, a golden age when the Muslim world was at the forefront of math, science and medicine.
68
You just don’t see Muslims being matter-of-fact Muslim. They’re always defined by their Muslim-ness. We’re either terrorists, or we’re fighting terrorists. I remember seeing ‘True Lies’ and going, ‘Why are we always the bad guys?’
69
When my cousin sister got married to a Muslim boy, my family was baffled. All the brothers had abandoned her. But I said there is nothing wrong in it. We have not lost our sister. In fact, we got another family member in the form of that boy.
70
If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn’t have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.
71
Violence is almost an everyday occurrence in some Muslim lands: it should not be exacerbated by revenge attacks on more innocent families and communities.
72
In just my own neighborhood, you can’t go one block without seeing a sign that says, you know, ‘Everyone’s welcome here,’ ‘Refugees are welcome here.’ I love my Muslim neighbors, and so there is truly this spirit of generosity and compassion and openness that still exists.
73
I’ve got many letters from Muslim organizations thanking me for making ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’
74
I wanted to cut past the polemics and experience London’s Muslim communities for myself. My first visit was to Tower Hamlets, an East London borough that is about 38% Muslim, among the highest in the U.K. As I walked down Whitechapel Road, the adhan, or call to prayer, echoed through the neighborhood.
75
I think every Muslim woman has to feel the world out for herself.
76
The more I photographed Muslim women, the more I was able to metaphorically strip away the burqas and hijabs, and start chipping away at the profound misconceptions that existed in other parts of the world about these women and their culture.
77
The terrorists who committed the 2003 Istanbul attacks were locals, that is, Turks. And when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands last year, the murderer and his supporters were also part of the Muslim community.
78
I am a Muslim Arab, in my actions oriented very to the left, in my convictions.
79
I’d love it if American kids were listening to Muslim music.
80
In America, now, let us – Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever – fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one’s enemies. A tall order, that – perhaps the tallest of all.
81
If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it’s a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women.
82
Whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or atheist, everybody has a place in this society.
83
I belong to a Bohri Muslim family, and for us, food is our biggest celebration. We are used to elaborate five- to six-course meals.
84
Every single person in the Chicago independent scene said, ‘You’ve got to be a bad guy. You’re a Muslim. We’re gonna make money. We’re gonna call you Sheik Abdullah something. You’re gonna wear a turban.’
85
The members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria are also part of the Syrian people, and they have the right to exercise their democratic rights.
86
It is part of my faith as a Muslim to try to help those who are suffering from poverty or economic or political injustice.
87
I am a believing and practising Muslim – but I am also a social democrat.
88
Being raised Muslim, we had to get up at the crack of dawn to pray. There was no sleeping in, no getting up Saturday morning to watch cartoons because there was no TV in the house. But you got up and you worked, cleaned the house.
89
‘Mulk’ is a film that needed to be made. We can no longer sweep the isolation of the Indian Muslim under the carpet.
90
When Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, many in the country, including me, were hopeful that he would become a democratic president for all Egyptians – not only for the Muslim Brotherhood.
91
My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.
92
Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?
93
My name’s Mohamed, a lot of people know I’m Muslim, but I’m here because of my football talents, not because I’m Muslim.
94
Muslim views are not a monolithic blob.
95
The blatant aggressiveness of theocracies I find distressing, because I grew up when Christians, Muslim and animists lived peacefully together.
96
Realize that a Muslim will know that his wife was seen naked in this machine. You know what would be the reaction?… Terrible. I believe there’s technology out there that can identify bomb-type materials without necessarily, overly invading our privacy.
97
I’m a modern Muslim. I pray, and if I have a question, I ask someone who is more educated in the religion than me.
98
The Muslim community is completely fractured – it doesn’t really exist anymore; the only place it does exist is online.
99
I was a girl who was told that girls should not have their voice. I was from a conservative Muslim family where they only think about their daughters getting married.
100
Muslim women deplore misogyny just as western women do, and they know that Islamic societies also oppress them; why wouldn’t they? But liberation, for them does not encompass destroying their identity, religion, or culture, and many of them want to retain the veil.
101
I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country’s interest.
102
Some Muslim students experience secularism as an act of aggression.
103
Even as we pour hundreds of billions of dollars into our efforts in the Middle East, there is much that needs to be done to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world and beyond.
104
I’m Muslim but not really. My family did not care. And I always managed to skip religion classes when I was living in the Gulf, even when they were obligatory.
105
Our ideals are under the constant threat of extremism, whether in the form of radical Muslim groups or the emergence of other elements seeking to deny the rights and freedoms of others.
106
The al-Aqsa compound is occupied territory that, as per the status quo, is administered by the King of Jordan and the Muslim Waqf.
107
I don’t care if you’re Christian, you’re Muslim, you’re gay, you’re straight – I am here to fight for your equality. Because I believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equally, and that is why we must fight.
108
I think the effective thing is, I passed this bill to combat violent extremism in the United States as effective outreach to the Muslim community, so you can pull the religious leaders really on to our team, if you will, to protect us from radicalization from within those communities.
109
There’s a sense of being under siege in many Muslim communities. People just assume there are agents or informants in their mosque now. It’s a fact of life.
110
A businessman admits that he ‘let go’ an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.
111
What shall I say, O Muslims, I know not myself, I am neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, nor a Muslim.
112
The arrival of thousands of Muslim infiltrators to Israeli territory is a clear threat to the state’s Jewish identity. The refugees’ place is not among us, and the initiative to transfer them to Australia is the right and just solution.
113
I’m Muslim the way many of my Jewish friends are Jewish: I avoid pork, and I take the big holidays off.
114
The nexus of Donald Trump’s hateful behaviors and policies around Muslim people and immigrants comes together right here in Minneapolis. I knew immediately that the people I represent were going to be very, very scared and very, very worried for their safety.
115
I’m a Sufi Muslim, I would say. I believe in using the medium to create a good vibration because art is so important to society. Some projects I don’t do because I feel that it’s going to create a bad vibe. I don’t do propaganda films that are anti another religion, anti-Muslim or anti-Hindu.
116
Religions cannot change you. If you are angry, you will become an angry Muslim or Hindu. If you are righteous, you will become a righteous Christian or Jew.
117
My wife and I have what’s known as mixed marriage. I am a Methodist, she is a Muslim. So we’re keeping it in the M’s.
118
I am from Scotland, and I am Christian, not Muslim.
119
Because the traditional mode of dress for Muslim women is so distinct – the headcovering, which is not there for guys – women carry a greater burden of representation than Muslim men do in non-Muslim societies.
120
Iran is central to our foreign policy in the Middle East, a major player in global energy markets, and a key country in terms of our interaction with the Muslim world.
121
I never was in the Nation of Islam… I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, ’cause it’s just me and God.
122
When I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
123
I think Tunisia has a specific place in the Arab world and in Africa because it is a tiny Muslim country, but it’s very open minded. It’s the first country to start the Arab Spring, for example.
124
Mecca and Medinah is a very special place in the hearts of every Muslim but particularly for every Afghan.
125
Muslim communities themselves, as they expect mainstream society to stand down racists, must do more to also stand down the Islamist extremists.
126
Being a Muslim American activist, I’ve been targeted by the right wing in a way that is very dangerous.
127
There is nothing more worrisome to ISIS than cooperation between ‘the West’ and the Muslim world, for it defies the narrative of a clash of civilisations the group is trying to revive.
128
Al Qaeda is a racially diverse organization that is well aware of its dependence on a labor pool dominated by Arab Muslim men. It also has an adaptable and fluid counterintelligence mind-set.
129
I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.
130
The hard reality is that attacks by vehicles in public places are very hard to defend against in a free and open society. The best defense against such attacks is good intelligence, and that often comes from inside the Muslim community.
131
The caricature of Islam as a violent and intolerant religion is horrendously incomplete. Remember that those standing up to Muslim fanatics are mostly Muslims.
132
Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
133
I am totally against the idea that a Muslim woman should not have the same opportunities as a Muslim man to learn, to open up, to work, help shape the future. To close Islam down to a sexist approach is totally intolerable and ridiculous. It’s not Islam.
134
Osama bin Laden characterized his terrorist activities as ‘defensive jihad,’ provoked by ‘debauched infidels’ bent on enslaving the Muslim world. The lead industry blamed ‘ignorant parents’ for applying lead paint to juvenile furniture.
135
I see no reason why the Shias should be debarred from having their voice in the elected bodies and governmental institutions in any matter which affect the Shias. We must so organise the Muslim League that justice is done to every sect and section inside it.
136
‘Muslim’ is not a political party. ‘Muslim’ is not a single culture. Muslims go to war with each other. There are more Muslims in India, Russia and China than in most Muslim-majority nations. ‘Muslim’ is not a homogenous entity.
137
My first wife is a good woman, I still can’t say nothing bad about her other than the fact that we had a difference on religion. She wanted someone who was a Muslim who shared those values. And I was like a heathen. I had to stay home on Sundays and watch the football game.
138
The human family is a great one, and the Muslim branch is certainly worth knowing.
139
Jamal Khashoggi was a Muslim Brotherhood operative, and so I don’t really feel sympathy for him.
140
I am certainly not a good Muslim. But I am able now to say that I am Muslim; in fact it is a source of happiness to say that I am now inside, and a part of the community whose values have always been closest to my heart.
141
The Muslim Brotherhood is a fundamentalist group.
142
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salifist parties are a real force in the Egyptian society. No civil, liberal government can succeed, even after new elections, if the Islamists are forced to work underground as a foe and the country remains divided.
143
Here in North Jersey, our Muslim community is essential to our social fabric.
144
Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and Muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly. Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that.
145
It may be politically incorrect to say, but it is nevertheless true that a terrorist today is exponentially more likely to be a Muslim than a Christian.
146
We need spies that look like their targets, CIA officers who speak the dialects terrorists use, and FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women who might be intimidated by men.
147
For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that.
148
I’ll tell you that when an innocent person is killed, we never go about asking or inquiring whether they were Jewish or Christian or Muslim. That’s not our way or creed.
149
The thing I found when I was actually reading through the Quran is that Christianity – that is a very easy switch to make to lead a Muslim to Christ.
150
There are a lot of Christian fundamentalists; there are a lot of Muslim extremists. Every religion – Mormonism – has something way on the side that’s completely using the religion as some weird backbone for their twisted faith. It has nothing to do with their religion.
151
Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been violated, its national dignity offended, and its religious traditions desecrated.
152
I believe Saudi Arabia is the only Muslim country in which churches are prohibited.
153
I wear the beard as a label. I want people to know I am a Muslim and I want people to know I am representing the Muslim faith. I want to show that you can practise your faith and still play cricket to a high level.
154
My being Muslim is only one part of my identity. But particularly in India and the world over, a concerted effort is being made to diminish all other aspects of identity and only take your religious identity as who you are.
155
I would rather live as a Muslim in the West than in most of the Muslim countries, because I think the way Muslims are allowed to live in the West is closer to the Muslim way.
156
With literature, sometimes a book is presented in the media as being say, a Muslim story or an African story, when essentially it’s a universal story which we can all relate to it, no matter what race or social background we come from.
157
For the jihadists, Muslim women who embrace Western mores, and wear tight jeans or mini skirts, are hated symbols of corruption that need to be eradicated. For the ideological mentors of Breivik, a similar disturbance comes from the burqa, which is banned in France and Belgium, partly thanks to their efforts.
158
I am concerned if 25 percent of Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. I mean, it’s obviously a lack of knowledge. But also, it’s for the Muslims as well, you know, because a small numbers of Muslims have really painted a very negative image of Islam.
159
Many travelers get into trouble in places like Dubai by assuming that it is sufficiently Western for them to drink as they do back home. But elsewhere in the Muslim world, it is quite controlled, and the non-Muslim will be steered down a fairly narrow path.
160
My parents are really conservative. My dad is Muslim, and my mom is the most conservative woman you’ve ever met. They’re very aristocratic in the most quaint suburban way.
161
I abhor the rightwing Muslim ideology behind the veils, but I equally abhor the political rightwing xenophobes of Europe.
162
There is no sign saying ‘good Muslim’ or ‘bad Muslim.’ How many lives will be lost or destroyed trying to determine who is good or who is bad?
163
Europeans ridicule Muslim culture because they don’t understand the wisdom behind it. Take swine flu for instance: all the sudden you’ve got Europeans scared of pigs – we’ve been saying that for years!
164
I don’t really go down one path. I wouldn’t call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn’t put myself into any organized faith.
165
My upbringing was completely liberal from the start. In fact, I didn’t even have a Muslim identity.
166
Who cares if virtually the entire world views Obama’s drone attacks as unjustified and wrong? Who cares if the Muslim world continues to seethe with anti-American animus as a result of this aggression? Empires do what they want.
167
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
168
ISIL is not ‘radical Islam.’ Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Muslim Brotherhood – these are radical Islamic groups. They resort to armed struggle and terrorism to move toward their goals. But they are also deeply political organizations that have internal rules, standards, and codes of conduct.
169
I’m amazed by the misconceptions about Muslim women and the Arab world that I hear, and that really does hurt me.
170
I am proud of being a Somali-American Muslim, and my wardrobe has been an important part of my religious and cultural upbringing.
171
Corruption is rife in the Muslim world, and when it is coupled with the marginalization of religion, it manifests itself as frustration and becomes a fertile recruiting ground for extremism.
172
My dad was a strict Muslim. He had a lot of rules.
173
In New York, a Jew is a Jew, an Italian is an Italian, a Muslim is a Muslim: Nobody’s going out of his way to treat you in a special way.
174
It took me a long time to square with the fact that none of my experiences are typical – I’m not a typical American, but I’m also not a typical Muslim.
175
I rock up to training, and Folkesy, Steve Folkes – someone that, to be honest, has never paid any interest in my personal life – he comes up to me and starts saying, ‘You’re not turning Muslim are you?’
176
I did not come into Parliament to be a Muslim MP. And I have never set myself up as a Muslim spokesperson or community leader. Just as ordinary citizens have multiple identities, so do MPs.
177
BJP are opposed to a Muslim boy marrying a Hindu girl. Then how did BJP have an alliance with Mehbooba Mufti or Nitish Kumar or Chandrababu Naidu?
178
Shamir and Nasir were my homeboys. They were from Philly and they’re Muslim. I’m not a Muslim, but I liked their names. They were like, ‘your name starts with an N, so just come up with Nahmir.’ So I just put ‘Nah’ in front of ‘Amir.’
179
The Taliban is the Muslim version of the Salem witch trials.
180
If you woke up this morning and you are breathing, and you are Muslim, then you are political. You have no choice but to be political in a country that has politicized you and politicized your religion.
181
This American right to bear arms with, practically, a Muslim fierceness, sometimes seems as if it must be age-old, an ancient tradition from a tenacious frontier holdover.
182
More than a decade and half after 9/11, U.S. military actions in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and several other Muslim nations are governed by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the days immediately after 9/11.
183
People value Halloween, like Valentine’s Day, because they can tell themselves that it’s not merely secularized but actually secular, which is to say, not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim.
184
I don’t believe in differentiating between Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian – we are all one, and Mumbai is for everyone.
185
By alienating Muslim communities and our closest allies, Mr. Trump would destroy the partnerships we need to effectively fight terror.
186
When people question me too much, I generally ask them if such rules are applicable to someone like actor Mammootty. They reply, Mammootty is a man and you are a woman. You aren’t supposed to do certain things.’ And I go like, Why not? Are there separate rules for Muslim men and women?’
187
The Muslim Brotherhood, or ‘the Brotherhood’ for short, is an Islamic group founded in Egypt in 1928. It has been pursuing a secret campaign to take over the government since its creation.
188
Without doubt, Malaysia is the great economic star of the Muslim world.
189
A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic – all of them are the same. The thinking that, ‘If you don’t think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;’ this is something to condemn.
190
Once you start listening to the comics, be they Jewish, Muslim, Italian, Filipino or whatever, the material often springs from the same source – the overbearing mom, the parents who want you to marry from within your community. That’s why the ‘Ethnic Show’ works so well.
191
The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people, but they have a lot of credibility because all the other liberal parties have been smothered for 30 years.
192
With the 5-to-4 decision upholding Trump’s Muslim ban, arbitrary discrimination is now formal U.S. policy, celebrated by a president who campaigned on a ‘total ban’ of Muslims entering the United States.
193
Islam believes that Jesus is a prophet, and they honour him – highly – and they respect him, and they follow his teachings. So, for me, as somebody who was raised Muslim, it is an honour to actually play Jesus, just because of that.
194
Think of ISIS as a pathogen that preys on weak hosts in the Muslim world. In fact, there is something of a political law: The weaker a Muslim state, the stronger will be the presence of ISIS or like-minded groups.
195
India’s Muslims know that India is the only country in the world where Islam’s all 72 sects are found. No other nation, not even Muslim countries, have all the 72 sects of Islam.
196
For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I’m saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he’s Muslim, he’s from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard.
197
I was born in a middle class Muslim family, in a small town called Myonenningh in a northern part of Bangladesh in 1962. My father is a qualified physician; my mother is a housewife. I have two elder brothers and one younger sister. All of them received a liberal education in schools and colleges.
198
As a British Muslim, I am no stranger to prejudice. I know what it’s like to be discriminated against just because of your background or religion.
199
We tend to forget in the West that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.
200
Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have to win some very terrible wars in the future.
201
The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
202
At the same time women are putting on the headscarf, they are also going to work, to education, increasingly vocal in the media – and this is the confusing thing about Muslim women in the West,. They are becoming Westernized at the same time as they are adopting their religious identity more strongly.
203
My parents had an inter-reli’gious marriage. My father is a Gujarati and my mother a Bohri Muslim. I am an only child. My par’ents loved me very much, but were very strict: I was a tomboy, always among boys, playing, fighting.
204
The Syrian border town of Qa’im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.
205
I would like here to announce to all Indonesian Muslims that I, as a private citizen, am prepared to take charge of the massive national effort of zakat collection… From now on, I am personally willing to receive zakat payments made in the form of money orders from every single Muslim in the country.
206
There are plenty of Muslim women who are backbones of the community, but they aren’t usually at the forefront. There just aren’t a lot of me out there – women in hijabs, doing what I do.
207
Some Muslim children, both male and female, have little choice in who to marry, what to study, what their careers will be, and who they can socialise with. Their lives are constrained under the expectations of family ‘honour.’
208
As the United States shapes and carries out its policies toward Muslim countries, it should do so with Turkey at its side.
209
I was terrified of being on camera. I was worried that whatever I would say, people would assume I’m speaking for every Muslim, every Pakistani, or every Middle Eastern person. That’s a lot of pressure. But it also got me excited about what could be done, because I am a representative for people who are underrepresented.
210
Therefore, the observation must be explicitly made: In the Middle East and in the Muslim world, suspicions linger concerning the objectives of the West and notably the US.
211
A woman as the leader of the Free World is an impossibility. Muslim countries won’t talk to you.
212
It is the strength of our culture that we can have Sonia Gandhi, who is Catholic, a Sikh prime minister, and a Muslim president.
213
Obama’s entire foreign policy was predicated on the notion that by existing, he would bridge all gaps and bury all hatchets. Instead, the Muslim world burns his picture even as he tells them he respects their radicalism. It turns out that diversity is a one-way street for the devotees of global Islam.
214
As a feminist of Egyptian and Muslim descent, my life’s work has been informed by the belief that religion and culture must never be used to justify the subjugation of women.
215
There’s a billion and a half Muslim experiences. All I can give you is my one weird, self-examining perspective.
216
I beg Osama to stop warring. He is a Muslim, and Islam means peace. Nobody wins in a war… I wish I were tapped in the problem about Iraq. I knew Saddam enough that I could have talked him into surrendering. But it’s too late.
217
Middle Eastern Muslim countries are not only important for Afghanistan due to common culture and faith, but also because of economic benefits.
218
I am not a Somali representative. I am not a Muslim representative. I am not a millennial representative. I am not a woman representative. I am a representative who happens to have all of these marginalized identities and can understand the intersectionality of all of them in a very unique way.
219
As an ethnically Asian Muslim, born and bred in this country, I am British. I have never felt a conflict between my country, my religion, and my background.
220
I’m not going to allow this world to make my son scared of saying he’s a Muslim.
221
I think stopping any Muslim artist from performing at Ramlila is a cheap gimmick to gain publicity.
222
I was on the steering committee of the New York City Coalition on Muslim School Holidays.
223
He who becomes a Muslim does so in his own interest.
224
When it comes to the Sunnis and Shiites, it is not for the United States or for us or for anyone else to settle who was the heir of Muhammad. This is a Muslim and Arab problem, and they have to deal with it.
225
We who don’t want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.
226
There have been huge Muslim demonstrations against cartoons depicting Muhammad and any other perceived insult against Islam. But I am unaware of a single demonstration of Muslims against Muslim terror directed at non-Muslims.
227
The hatred Muslim extremists feel against the West feeds on certain conflicts in the world.
228
There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.
229
Our culture is a very diverse one, and I think now it is incredibly dangerous and very wrong to persecute Muslims and say there is something wrong with being a Muslim.
230
When I started in government, I said that children who come here should take German classes before they start regular classes so they can follow what the teachers say. I said it should be possible to be a believing Muslim and a proud Austrian at the same time.
231
Iran believes that before Imam Mahdi reappears, it must prepare a fertile ground for him and that it must control the Muslim world.
232
I did notice growing up that there are so many things, obstacles and things, that people think you can’t do because you’re Muslim or because you’re wearing a hijab. You hear a lot of no’s. That was something that I wanted to see change.
233
I think we have to understand that when tolerance becomes a one-way street, it will lead to cultural suicide. We should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy.
234
For me, it is freedom, freedom from everything: when I write, I’m not a woman. I’m not a Muslim. I’m not a Moroccan. I can reinvent myself, and I can reinvent the world.
235
I cannot discriminate on the basis of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian.
236
My mom is a Pan-Africanist. My dad is still Orthodox Sunni Muslim, but he’s super fun. He worked in television for years. He was a Black Panther.
237
People think a Muslim has to have a turban or a big beard. It’s stupid.
238
To be slapped with a shoe is a dirty insult in the Muslim world.
239
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
240
We certainly love the Muslim people. But that is not the faith of this country. And that is not the religion that built this nation. The people of the Christian faith and the Jewish faith are the ones who built America, and it is not Islam.
241
I get to say I was alive when the first Palestinian woman went to Congress. I was alive when the first Somali woman, in a hijab, who’s black and Muslim – she’s literally an immigrant, a refugee, black and Muslim and a woman and progressive.
242
American jihadists are generally motivated by a mix of factors, including dislike of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world.
243
The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of extreme ideology. They are the godfather of all terrorist organizations. They spread it all over the world.
244
Today, the Muslim world is the poorest of the global powers.
245
To the Muslim woman, the hijab provides a sense of empowerment. It is a personal decision to dress modestly according to the command of a genderless Creator; to assert pride in self, and embrace one’s faith openly, with independence and courageous conviction.
246
Being a Muslim is very important to me, more important than anything, although sometimes travel makes it difficult for me to always pray when I want to.
247
Trump seems to accept the idea that there are secret Muslim training camps in America, and has openly suggested Obama himself is a Muslim, and foreign born.
248
I am a Muslim, but my favourite festival is Holi, so that is how it is.
249
I feel like I’m here to bust those misconceptions and stereotypes of Muslim women.
250
Family planning, birth control, no Muslim family can practice such an understanding.
251
The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon – there are more Muhammads than anything else. When I joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim, they gave me the most famous name because I was the champ.
252
Typically, in the cities there can be resistance to the gospel or just to Americans, or anybody that’s Western. When you get back into the villages, the people are very welcoming. Then when you get into Muslim areas, it definitely gets a little more difficult.
253
The United States must continue to support efforts made by Middle Eastern governments to educate Muslim youth and steer them away from violent radicalization.
254
I have a long history of defending, and promoting, free speech and open debate – especially (especially!) within Muslim communities.
255
World leaders and, particularly, Muslim religious leaders need to stand up and protect the oppressed.
256
There are some who believe that secularism and Islam are not compatible. But Muslims should show everyone that this is not the case. It’s up to them to show that you can be French and Muslim and still respect secular rules.
257
The attacks on the Paris Metro in the 1990s were committed by members of the local Muslim community, immigrants from the Maghreb region of North Africa.
258
I’m the first person to say don’t equate between terrorism and Islam. But at the same time, I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t a threat from some British Muslim homegrown extremists.
259
Islam expect every Muslim to do this duty, and if we realise our responsibility time will come soon when we shall justify ourselves worthy of a glorious past.
260
In the instance of Iran for Russia, Iran is a very important counterweight to the Sunni Muslim powers in the Gulf, but Russia’s always been very concerned about potentially proselytizing and supporting groups inside of the Russian federation itself.
261
Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy. And we also have the world’s largest Muslim population. This demonstrates that democracy and Islam are not incompatible. Terrorism is not associated with any religion.
262
Researchers looked at news programs on major broadcast and cable networks between 2008 and 2012 and found that of those labeled as domestic terrorists, 81% were identifiable as Muslims – this despite the fact that FBI reports from the period studied revealed that only 6% of domestic terrorist suspects were Muslim.
263
Instead of arguing about whether we’re allowed to describe Muslim terrorists as ‘Muslim terrorists,’ why don’t we argue about whether it’s a good idea to be letting in so many immigrants who then blow up the Boston Marathon?
264
To pretend that there is no such thing as the Muslim world is specious, self-deluding, and – frankly – plain silly.
265
We know that in the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. They recruit people from poor areas and turn them into terrorists.
266
Look, yes, I’m a Muslim woman and I want to bring my community to the table, but I also want to make sure that I’m not being tokenized.
267
I have watched the spread of violent extremism and jihadism across Europe and the U.K. with dismay, particularly given my history of experiencing threats, abuse, and harassment by Muslim fanatics.
268
The waves of religion based on terrorism in the 1990s are based on the tormented response of a mutilated Muslim society whose progressive forces have been savagely emasculated. Why on earth is the Arab world so hostile to women? Why can it not see women as a force for development?
269
Trump’s racism has clearly driven his policy decisions during his first year in office – from his Muslim ban and his despicable treatment of DREAMers to his ruthless ramp-up of immigration raids and the callous termination of protections for Haitians and Salvadorans who fled natural disaster and violence.
270
I think my faith as a Muslim is very important. One of the core values is that you are always trying to build consensus. So when it comes to figuring out if something is permissible or not in Islam, it’s usually a discussion, and people have to come to a consensus in order for something to be approved.
271
I think there has been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community.
272
US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan.
273
I really didn’t grow up religious, and I didn’t grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani.
274
I can tell you that the majority of the Egyptians I know, they think of a much wider spectrum of people than the Muslim Brotherhood.
275
We are Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Hindu and none of the above. We are gay and straight. We are black, brown, white, and innumerable combinations. We are young and old, female and male, with and without disabilities, urban and rural, and liberal and conservative. Every one of us is an equal American.
276
Justice is the most important thing. In a plural society like Malaysia, you cannot have two laws – one law for the Muslim, one law for the non-Muslim.
277
I’ve worked for over 11 years in the Muslim world, and the one thing that I feel like I’ve learned – who’s to say if it’s true or not true, it’s just my experience – is that men don’t like to see really strong, aggressive women in that area of the world.
278
Even in the Western world, one cannot argue that the ideal has been achieved given the existence of issues like the integration, participation and representation of Muslim citizens, and occasional but lingering anti-Semitism.
279
The greatest preventative to terrorism is Muslim religious literacy.
280
My dad is Arab. I’m not Muslim, but half of family is, so I see a lot of injustice happening in the portrayal of Muslims that they don’t have any heroes.
281
We are a multicultural family. My mother is Hindu, my father Muslim. We celebrate every festival, be it Diwali or Eid.
282
Most of my Muslim friends are politically liberal in a lot of senses. They are far more open-minded than the Christian circles I grew up in, which are, you know, actually scarier. That said, too, I still identify with the teachings of Jesus. I don’t think they resemble or relate to modern-day Christianity.
283
I’m Christian. Growing up in Ethiopia, it’s half-Christian and half-Muslim. You grow up with Muslim kids. I’m very much aware of their religion.
284
The reason we have Christian president and Muslim vice president or Muslim president and Christian vice president is to have balance.
285
In the Muslim world, there are many people who have been vocal and we have been very vocal against extremists. But how to win this battle is an ongoing battle. And we must continue to wage the battle for peace.
286
Being Somali, being Muslim, it’s always something I’ve been very proud of.
287
I care about affordable housing. I care about bus routes. I care about small business. I care about schools. These are not Muslim issues. Even protection of civil rights – that’s not just a Muslim issue. That is for everyone.
288
I’m not a perfect Muslim; I think none of us are perfect human beings. I do the five pillars of Islam, you know, I pray five times a day.
289
I’m a firm believer in God himself, but that’s as far as I can go. I’m not any denomination. I’m not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I’m none of those things. And I’m sure that’s just fine with God.
290
The wise Jewish Israeli must work with the moderate Muslim and the Christian leader of the free world against the crazy Muslims.
291
My observance as a practicing Muslim in the NBA is somewhat uncommon. Since joining the league in 2011, my dedication to my faith has aroused the curiosity of teammates, coaches, trainers and fans.
292
The Palestine I know is a place where Christians and Muslims are equal. My mother, a Muslim village girl, attended a Catholic girls’ school in Ramallah, and my refugee husband spent the Second Intifada side by side with his Christian brothers from Bethlehem.
293
What’s my audience? British society. Am I received relatively well? Yes. Is there within that… if you break it down, challenges with Muslim communities? Of course there are.
294
If you’re someone who doesn’t have Muslim friends, and your only experience of Islam is what you see on the news – the angry man with a beard doing or saying something terrible – then you may inadvertently associate that with Islam and think that is what it’s all about.
295
I don’t want anyone who is Muslim not to be able to dream that they can be President of the United States, and I don’t want any of my friends, regardless of their orientation, thinking they are less of a citizen.
296
My family are observant Muslims, but I’ve come to the faith through an intellectual conviction, and that’s something that they’ve taught me. It’s never been forced upon me. They’ve given me a very strong identity as an Australian Muslim.
297
A 2014 survey found that 74% of law-enforcement agencies reported antigovernment extremism as one of the top terrorist threats. Just 3% of those agencies viewed the threat from Muslim extremists as severe.
298
People see me as Andre first. Then they see me as someone who happens to be a Muslim.
299
My mother is an ordained minister. I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do back flips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now, you put things to the side, and I’m able to see her, and she’s able to see me. We love each other. The love has grown.
300
Whatever color you believe in, be it green or orange, Hindu or Muslim, you can’t cheat your country.
301
For many Sudanese, it’s for strength they choose to be Christian rather than Muslim. My mum was a Muslim but she became a Christian later.
302
My message to everyone is that we truly are one, and the minute you see me as the person, not just as the Muslim – when you see me as Adeel Alam and not just the character on TV – when you see past all of that, we are all the same, and we are all just one.
303
In the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That… was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about ‘white men.’
304
Mubarak’s regime is dead and finished. People will not go back to this. This is a farce being propagated by the Muslim Brotherhood to say that this revolution was supported by the remnants of the Mubarak regime. They have gone against the whole Egyptian society, and this is why they were removed.
305
What is a Muslim neighborhood? How many Muslims have to be in a neighborhood before it becomes worthy of checking papers and kicking in the doors of homes and businesses?
306
Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Arab terror groups are committed to the destruction of Israel, a position supported by millions in the Muslim world.
307
Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.
308
American wars in Muslim countries created some extremists and inflamed many more while producing a security vacuum that allowed them to wreak mayhem.
309
In San Francisco, I eat halal, which is kind of like Muslim kosher, and there’s this one Thai restaurant, and it’s right next to the ‘Great American Hall’. I’m there all the time whenever I’m in town; that’s my spot.
310
I want to help with Muslim integration. If you follow the line of Marine Le Pen, you create a civil war.
311
One of the things I’ve thought about ‘Midnight’s Children’ is that it is a novel which puts a Muslim family at the centre of the Indian experience.
312
What happened in Pakistan was that people were told: You’re all Muslim, so now you’re a country. As we saw in 1971 with the Bangladesh secession, the answer to that was: ‘Oh no, we’re not.’
313
The vast majority of Muslims living here are peaceful citizens. Unfortunately, however, we also see religious and political fanaticism among Muslim groups in Germany.
314
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized.
315
The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda in Iraq are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.
316
I’m saying we’ve got big problems in our cities. It’s not very smart to make the problem bigger by letting in millions more immigrants from rural Muslim cultures that don’t assimilate.
317
The truth is nobody was a Muslim until Public Enemy came out. Then, everybody was Muslim this and Muslim that. It’s a bandwagon thing. Islam is a way of life… it’s a religion. It’s not just something you put on a record.
318
I’m a proud Muslim. I’m proud to have a Pakistani origin. And I want this country to accept me. I want to bring to light the fact that we are all the same.
319
There’s this idea that when you say you’re Muslim, that you’re either all in or you’re trying to escape it. I love the idea of gradations and levels, just like everybody else has.
320
I use myself as a template for my comedy. So first my background as a Muslim man, my being a doctor, I talk about my family quite a lot, my kids. Anything that resonates with me I talk about. The important thing is it should be able to work in a family setting.
321
At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.
322
Everyone in the world, regardless if they’re Muslim or not, does not have to adhere to the label society slaps on you.
323
There’s something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It’s like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.
324
I was born on September, 20, 1948, to Nanabhai Bhatt, a Hindu, and Shirin Mohammed Ali, a Muslim. I was born after three daughters and followed by a daughter and son.
325
When I first started in Malaysia, having a Muslim Malay girl singing and holding a guitar was new to everyone. Even Muslims there had issues with it; they found it weird.
326
The Muslim world and its subset the countries of the Middle East have been left behind in the marathon of political, economic and human development. For that, there is a tendency to blame others as the primary cause.
327
Yusuf Qaradawi is probably the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.
328
I’m a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to me.
329
Being a Muslim is more important than me being a footballer. A good Muslim is a good person, so I try to be a good person. I just live the way I want to live.
330
There are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It’s fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama’s father was a Muslim and people have used this to arouse hostility against him.
331
Religion is a huge part of me; I’m a practicing Muslim. I’m pretty much open about it if people were to answer questions. At the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl. I have my own beliefs just like everyone else. I have a strong belief in something, but I also love music.
332
I will oppose a Muslim registry with every fiber of my being. That is not the American way of conducting affairs and violates every principle we stand for.
333
I was born in Iran, which has a predominantly Muslim population, and I have relatives who are devout Muslims, so I know what it means to be judged based on your appearance and what you’re wearing. But your ethnicity and your clothing do not define who you are.
334
I did a lot of things as a Muslim that I am sorry for now.
335
I grew up with so much of the identity of being Muslim and being Arab tied around politics.
336
Because of my pseudonym Gulzar, which is how I am known, some people think I am a Muslim.
337
Every single interview I have ever done on TV or in print says I’m a Muslim.
338
For too long, some lazy politicians have engaged leaders of Muslim communities as a shortcut to engaging disenfranchised Muslim citizens.
339
I was seen as a traitor for marrying a Muslim – a Pakistani at that.
340
Wearing hijab made you know that I was Muslim.
341
Islam is a religion. It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion, and I live in a democratic, social state.
342
It’s important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally.
343
We have to defeat them on the battlefield and in the marketplace of ideals. And PBS, I believe, owed the nation the chance to hear the moderate Muslim voices who decry terrorism and Jihadism, and they didn’t give them that chance, and that’s a terrible thing.
344
See as a Muslim myself, I have never faced any intolerance or any discrimination in any part of the country, instead I have been showered with love, but the people who say that they have faced intolerance must be given a chance to speak up, instead of muzzling their voice.
345
When I’m out of town, I always try to get some readings or some type of new information to where I’m learning more about Islam, just to become the best Muslim I can become.
346
My mum is a rock star, and I idolise her. She was born in a conservative Muslim family, where the girls were not educated much, and she was required to wear a burkha. She felt repressed but dreamt of driving her own car, walking around in jeans and wearing sunglasses, and she did.
347
I lived in the Muslim world for 10 years.
348
Every Muslim leader must unequivocally proclaim that terror committed in the name of Islam violates the core tenets of the Prophet Mohammed, and they must do so repeatedly. Period.
349
As a woman, I have tried to take advantage of the extra access I have in the Muslim world: with Muslim women, for example. Many people underestimate women in that part of the world because, typically, they don’t work.
350
My experience in relation to taking on the preachers of hate was saying to them it’s compatible being British, being Western, being Muslim.
351
Being raised by a Catholic father, a Protestant mother, and marrying the Muslim father of my three children, I encourage people to respect and at least try to understand different religions.
352
I’ve never gotten up in front of a Muslim congregation and played the role of a religious leader, and I decline those invitations because that’s not what I am.
353
I feel anxious for my children because tomorrow, if a mob surrounds them and asks, ‘Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?’ they will have no answer.
354
Social media has emboldened an army of online Islamophobes; in the real world, mosques have been firebombed and politicians line up to condemn Muslim terrorism/clothing/meat/seating arrangements.
355
I grew up as a Muslim: it was quite a conservative upbringing; I didn’t wear mini-skirts. But my mum and dad had a good sense of humour and were creative. I guess all of that shaped me.
356
There are some Muslim leaders whose wives are Hindu. There are some Hindu leaders who are married to Muslim women. These have been love marriages, but such couples do not display their love in public. They are wary and cautious about annoying voters.
357
I was named after a Muslim.
358
Even if you didn’t see the movie, you’d see two words you’d never seen put together before – comedy and Muslim. Comedy is friendly – it’s the least offensive word in our language.
359
They are scared that the BBC or CNN may call them radicals, so they remain soft instead. The problem lies there, with the Muslim leaders, not the Muslim masses.
360
I have found that whiskey is enjoyed as a refined secret pleasure in many cities – and it appears to be popular in Pakistan, as it is all over the tropical Asian world, Muslim or non-Muslim.
361
I can’t believe, even in ‘The Guardian,’ people ask the questions, ‘Where did ISIS come from?’ ‘How did this happen?’ ‘Why do young Muslim women go off to join them?’ Maybe because we’ve been degrading their people since 1917. Maybe their teenage years are a little bit more stressed than that of Christianity.
362
One of the themes of ‘The Longest War,’ my book, which came out before the Arab spring happened, was how al-Qaida and bin Laden was losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world, not because the United States was winning them, but because al-Qaida was simply losing them.
363
I feel like one of the things that is central to American life is the religious experience, and I think that the experience of being Muslim in America is as valid and as important a perspective on the religious experience of America as evangelical Christianity or Judaism – whatever it may be.
364
If Oak Flat were a Christian holy site or, for that matter, Jewish or Muslim, no senator who wished to remain in office would dare to sneak a backdoor deal for its destruction into a spending bill – no matter what mining-company profits or jobs might result. But this is Indian religion.
365
If I can play, and change the mind of one person about being a Muslim player and having a beard, then I’ll feel as if I’ve done my job.
366
As you look at the flow of Muslim fundamentalism, or fundamentalism in various areas and various religions, they all play on the people who have very little.
367
I have a lot of respect for aspects of Islam, but I would not choose to live in a theocratically organised Muslim society.
368
Pakistan and Afghanistan are not mere neighbours, we are more than that, we are connected by Muslim bond of brotherhood.
369
The ‘Ms. Marvel’ mantle has passed to ‘Kamala Khan,’ a high school student from Jersey City who struggles to reconcile being an American teenager with the conservative customs of her Pakistani Muslim family.
370
I grew up in Morocco. I was born a Muslim, and, every year, I celebrated Christmas in a big white house in the country, halfway between Meknes and Fez.
371
I am a Muslim, yes, but I am also very English. People don’t realise how proud I am to be representing my country or being from Birmingham.
372
I never was in the Nation of Islam… I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, ’cause it’s just me and God. You know, going to the mosque, the ritual and the tradition, it’s just not in me to do. So I don’t do it.
373
When I started running for Congress, it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress.
374
Only in America can the first-generation Indian American Muslim kid get on the stage and make fun of the president.
375
There’s a difference between being a fundamentalist and being al-Qaeda and being Muslim. It’s absurd to think otherwise.
376
I believe Islam was truly spread by example. So whatever good a Muslim does publicly will be seen – the same is true for the bad.
377
There are many positive values that come with a Muslim upbringing. But when religion becomes about rules and hierarchies, when it starts to feel like a prison, I’m not interested.
378
At age 11, I went to a Jewish school. I speak Yiddish. I’m Church of England Protestant. My father was Catholic, and my mother was Protestant. My wife is a Muslim.
379
In terms of trying to inspire other people with faith to play and stuff I am very proud of that. I remember seeing Muslim athletes or guys with other faiths performing and still carrying the label of being a religious person and it does inspire people.
380
We need someone who will stand up and speak up and speak out for the people who need help, for people who are being discriminated against. And it doesn’t matter whether they are black or white, Latino, Asian or Native American, whether they are straight or gay, Muslim, Christian, or Jews.
381
Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
382
As Muslim women, we’re not waiting for the president of the United States to open doors for us or to fight our fights.
383
I think we need a Muslim ‘Bachelor’ or ‘Bachelorette.’ I think that’s what would be the great equalizer, and that would change everything.
384
Muslim organisations tend to have a low level of organisation. The communities in Europe are quite diverse.
385
While no Muslim worthy of his name would lose his respect for God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other symbols of Islam, he might well refrain from using legal prosecution or violent reaction to those who do not show the same respect. My basis for this claim is nothing other than the holiest source of Islam, the Quran.
386
I really like the idea of modesty. By the time I got into music, I was already wearing the scarf all the time, and it’s really personal to me, my Muslim beliefs, so I decided to keep it and find a way to work around it. I don’t see it as a restriction or limitation – I can still be me and get into music and be an entertainer.
387
Fundamentally, I believe that the U.S. can improve its international standing and its national security by expanding trade and strengthening its relationships with moderate Muslim countries.
388
I am a proud, British-born Muslim, and I love my country more than any other place on earth.
389
If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her.
390
The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s, which have emphasized difference at the expense of shared national identity.
391
For as long as the power of America’s diversity is diminished by acts of discrimination and violence against people just because they are black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, Muslim or gay, we still must overcome.
392
When Pakistan was carved out of India’s rib in 1947, it was assumed by some that Bollywood’s Muslim stars would defect to the new state and thus boost the Lahore film industry. But Lollywood did not happen.
393
I inadvertently made Israel look better without even trying, because I am this Muslim guy from Israel who does not hate Israel!
