Islamic Reform, Islamic Reformation Quotes

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.

The Islam Ataturk professed contained nothing contrary to reason and progress.

Give them Islam, proclaim to the world the program of Islamic government; maybe the kings and presidents of the Muslim countries will understand the truth of what we say and accept it. We would not want to take anything away from them; we will leave anyone in his place who faithfully follows Islam.

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.

Will Islam modernize or will it be stuck where it has been for hundreds of years?

Al Qaeda's leaders seek to reverse what they claim are corrupt Islamic practices bookended by the Mongol invasions in 1256 and Ataturk's ending the caliphate in 1924. Theirs is a fight to turn Islam's clock back to the time of Prophet Muhammad's original followers.

We invite our friends who hold high positions in the legislative branch of government and state institutions to master the skills of administration, so they could, when the time comes, reform the Turkish state and make it more fruitful at all its levels in the name of Islam.

What I see now is that even with the Islamists, who have been portraying themselves as the alternative to corruption and dictatorship and in defence of more transparency, there is one respect in which they have now changed completely. Since the beginning of the 1920's, Islamism was very close in positioning in some respects to 'liberation theology'. But that is no longer the case.

We call on the governments of the world to reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights; eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women; protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence; reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims; and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

The Islamic awakening began as a spiritual, an individual event, but it has become increasingly political.

I draw a distinction between traditional Islam and Islamism. Islamism emerged in its modern form in the 1920s and is driven by a belief that Muslims can be strong and rich again if they follow the Islamic law severely and in its entirety. This is a response to the trauma of modern Islam.

The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.

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

The clash of civilizations or the clash between Islam and the West may be cliches. But there is an even bigger cliche around: that this clash actually goes on within Islam, between reformists and fanatics.

The so-called "Wahhabis" are not a sect or new process. No one calls himself a "Wahhabi". It is a term foisted on people by others. The people so labeled are just people who call Muslims to return to their religion as it originally came from the Prophet

There is an ideology problem in Islam. We need to revolutionize our religion.

A second cause of our present apathy is the terrible position of Moslem women. There is absolutely nothing in Islam, or the Koran, or the example of the first two centuries, to justify this terrible and cancerous growth that has for nearly a thousand, years eaten into the very vitals of Islamic society…. the present system … means the permanent imprisonment and enslavement of half the nation. How can we expect progress from the children of mothers who have never shared, or even seen, the free social intercourse of modern mankind? This terrible cancer that has grown since the 3rd and 4th century of the Hijra must either be cut out, or the body of Moslem society will be poisoned to death by the permanent waste of all the women of the nation.

Christianity and Judaism have gone through the laundromat of humanism and enlightenment, but that is not the case with Islam.

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.

Pakistan is heir to an intellectual tradition of which the illustrious exponent was the poet and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal. He saw the future course for Islamic societies in a synthesis between adherence to the faith and adjustment to the modern age.

How do you criticize corrupt public officials without attacking their honor or reputation?

The truth is that among the Muslim nations of today Turkey alone has shaken off its dogmatic slumber, and attained self-consciousness. She alone has claimed her right of intellectual freedom: she alone has passed from the ideal to the real.

Science requires much more than money and projects. Science requires freedom: freedom to enquire, to challenge, to think, and to envision the unimagined. We must be able to question convention and arbitrate our disputes by the rules of evidence. It is the content of scientific work that matters, not the persons who produced it, regardless of the color of their skin, the god they choose to worship, the ethnic group they were born into, or their gender. These are the values of science, but even more, they are societal values worth defending, not just to promote the pursuit of science but to have a better and more humane society.

The Islamic world is fed up with violence and extremism in the name of religion and is ready for an era of progressive, democratic Muslim governments …. After about two centuries of dispute between tradition and modernity in the world of Islam there must be a high level of mental preparation for the acceptance of a major transformation in the mind and lives of Muslims.

We Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We’re in crisis and we’re dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for Islamic reformation, it is now.