Islamic Moderation Quotes

I was involved in an extreme or radical religious path from 1984-1989. I carried knives in the name of religious conflict. In point of fact, I felt something missing with the function of religion. I came to question whether Islam had truly commanded me to be exclusive and to isolate myself from other communities. There was a battle inside me…. I left that extremist group since it was impossible for me to survive in an exclusive community. Because Islam supports civilization, it should work for the betterment of human life. On the contrary, religious extremism and intolerance will destroy human civilization.

Islam does have two faces—a bright face and an evil face, and we must work with the former. The reaction of Moslems against Islamic extremism doesn’t get the coverage it should.

Besides, many Islamic movements will change as soon as they gain political responsibility. I'm not at all pessimistic in this regard. Just think of Turkey, where the Islamists are now behaving like a sort of Christian Democratic party in Europe.

It's not that we have two different kinds of Islam. I acknowledge the fact that we have two kinds of people. There are moderate Muslims and non-moderate Muslims. But there is really only one Islam, and this is the Islam of the life of Muhammad, of the Quran, of the Hadiths, of the Sunnah.

If radical Islam is ever to be shunted aside it will be by other Moslems with alternate interpretations.

We represent the moderate teachings and principles of Islam.

Our strategy should be to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims.

The West has been calling for years for the forces of moderate Islam to stand up to the very small percentage but very large number of radical Muslims all around the world. When countries - the U.A.E. or Egypt or Jordan - do that, we need to highlight it, we need to celebrate it, and we need to continue to encourage it.

The forces that led to radical Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, can ultimately only be defeated by moderate Muslims around the globe, countries like U.A.E. that have led the fight within their own border to promote tolerance.

I realised that the idea of enforcing sharia is not consistent with Islam as it's been practised from the beginning. In other words, Islam has always been secular, and I had been totally ignorant of the fact.

The religiously observant is lumped in with the nominal Muslim, the nominal Muslim is lumped in with the non-Muslim and the radical. If we want to make sense of this mess and stop pushing Muslims into the arms of the extremist, we need to make meaningful distinctions between the religion of Islam that a billion Muslims follow and see as a guidance as a peaceful righteous moral life and the puritanical Islam of a minority which so captures the media's attention.

It's important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally.

To speak of the Muslim world is not to endorse a totalitarian project, nor to bolster an Islamist narrative, nor to suggest that variety, plurality, and diversity are lacking in what Muslims think, believe, speak, and do as Muslims.

The only place in the Middle East where you can find moderate Moslems speaking is in those international conferences sponsored by Westerners…. They cannot have much of an influence if they are undermined by the majority and the fundamentalist clergy.

The genuine separation of mosque and state and the effective governance of religious institutions will facilitate better religious education and reintroduce moderate Islamic thinking...

Moderate Islam? That's a contradiction.

As a result of that, America desires a moderate Islam; an Islam that America can control; an Islam that America can give direction to and give orders to its leaders.

America doesn't have the moral authority or weight to tip the scales in this fight between moderate Islam and less tolerant Islam. Muslim communities and Muslim nations need to be leading edge of this fight.

The best antidote to extremism is not greater exposure to Western values… but greater involvement by moderate Islamists.

Reject racial or religious hate. Embrace moderate Islam.

The idea is that they wouldn't want to deal with militant Islam but an Islam and Muslims who are committed to progress, committed to development, who like peace and are moderate in their ways. So that's what we are doing here.

I've always maintained there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy. The Europeans in general confuse Islam and Islamism. Islamism is a political movement that instrumentalises the religion to get to power, which has nothing to do with religion. Islam here in Tunisia is a religion of openness, of tolerance.

We must work with moderate Moslems who are also the victims of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

As a matter of fact the majority of the Muslims living in our society are moderate people. But don't make the mistake that even though there are moderate and radical Muslims that there is a moderate or a radical Islam.

Islam is misunderstood by many. The extremists grab the headlines; those of us who want to practise our religion and live under this country's laws do not make the news.