Tariq Ramadan Quotes

#1. IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.

Tariq Ramadan

#2. The Islamic world is obsessed with the notion of strong leaders. This is a mistake. We don't need powerful leaders, but rather unconventional, progressive thinkers with the courage to open our minds.

Tariq Ramadan

#3. Wisdom is always connected to beauty. When you see someone acting by their principles, their wisdom makes them beautiful.

Tariq Ramadan

#4. A time will come when you're going to be numerous but your impact in the world will be like nothing

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#5. 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.

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#6. The suicide bomber who blows up Israeli children cannot transform himself into a martyr. The Palestinian problem is not an Islamic problem.

Tariq Ramadan

#7. It is only through the opposition of ideas that we can learn to be self-critical, to work towards intellectual humility.

Tariq Ramadan

#8. We must delve deep into history the better to engage a true dialogue of civilisations. Fear of the present can impose upon the past its own biased vision.

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#9. Cultures, along with the religions that shape and nurture them, are value systems, sets of traditions and habits clustered around one or several languages, producing meaning: for the self, for the here and now, for the community, for life.

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#10. The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong.

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#11. The process of reclaiming the self is one of reconciliation with meaning.

Tariq Ramadan

#12. Life is not black and white when it comes to perception.

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#13. Acknowledged differences may create mutual respect, but hazy misunderstandings bring forth nothing but prejudice and rejection.

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#14. Our task is to change the world for the better, not to adapt ourselves to the world.

Tariq Ramadan

#15. For me, equal citizenship for Muslims, Christians, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics is an indisputable principle. Whoever you are, you should get the same rights with no discussion and no compromise.

Tariq Ramadan

#16. We have to be very cautious not to accept the scam of polarization we see in the media. It is not in fact between secularists and Islamists, it is a battle within the Islamic reference.

Tariq Ramadan

#17. A Muslim should be sincerely religious AND politically aware.

Tariq Ramadan

#18. We have to reconcile ourselves with philosophical questions in every field. Every field should be open to inquiry and knowledge.

Tariq Ramadan

#19. What you need to do is protect the structures and dynamics that are helping the people choose. The only thing that we can do is to respect the will of the people when it comes to majority processes. It is not for us to impose a model, it is not for us to impose answers to some critical questions.

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#20. The problem is that the constitution should have been and was an opportunity, exactly as Moncef Marzouki tried to do, to bring together the secularists and Islamists.

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#21. A good Muslim is not one who is strictest in his judgment, but who is most patient in listening.

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#22. Intellect is a part of a good faith. Intellect is the light, the heart is the direction.

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#23. Intellectual modesty is humility as to what I know; intellectual humility is modesty as to what I do not know

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#24. The universality of Islam is not uniformity, it is unity with diversity.

Tariq Ramadan

#25. We integrate the good wherever we find it.

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#26. I am not a politician. I have often been approached in this regard, but I have always declined these sorts of offers. I view myself as an independent, critical intellectual, as someone who tries to stimulate thought on the left and the right, to encourage intellectual evolution.

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#27. Every country in Europe needs immigrants for its economic survival.

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#28. It's okay to feel the need for protection if there is a real external threat. But to feel protective from the inside, it's a kind of jail: you get so protective that you cannot get out of the box.

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#29. We need to realize that we should be on the side of any human being who is oppressed.

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#30. The Truth does not belong to you, you belong to the Truth.

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#31. I don't think we should take the emotional reactions of a few people as more representative than those of the millions of people who took to the street in a non-violent way against dictators.

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#32. I think that political parties are fuelling this fear in order to create divisions. The more we bring up fear, the more we neglect real political issues. Political debate in France is crumbling since every single issue is brought to Islam now.

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#33. Nothing is ever final" is a lesson in humility; "no final judgment should be passed" is a promise of hope. The

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#34. We cannot have a free market since it does not really set us free. It's free for interest, speculation and consumerism to create false needs.

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#35. Feeling sympathy and searching for explanations isn't the same as believing that the violence is justified.

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#36. When terrorism is directly aiming at Western countries, it is automatically and abnormally enlarged in order to instill emotions and fear. However, when attacks happen in the Middle East, is it conveniently downplayed and less talked about. Unless they would benefit more from a heavy coverage.

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#37. The rich stick together; the poor and the marginalised are thrown together.

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#38. Discomfort levels in our societies are rising, or so it would seem. In theory, we invoke diversity and tolerance. But in real life, we raise our hackles and withdraw into ourselves.

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#39. The 'fires'n that produce thick, rarely innocent, often strategic smoke should therefore be scrutinized. they should be known and identified; and when they involve dishonesty, lies, or manipulation, they they should be ignored.

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#40. The only way to resist colonialism is through education.

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#41. Our pluralist society must provide its citizens with the tools to understand religions, their symbols and their practices.

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#42. You can't say 'I don't do politics,' because silence is a political statement.

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#43. If we agree to say that those terrorists are indeed Muslim, I have no problem whatsoever to condemn their actions. I won't apologise though, or justify my point of view.

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#44. Don't nurture a sense of guilt; rather, nurture a sense of responsibility married with a sense of humility.

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#45. While criticism of Israel is legitimate and justifiable, it cannot be an excuse - in any way, shape or form - for anti-Semitism.

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#46. Behind every great man is not a woman, she is beside him, she is with him, not behind him

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#47. Ramadan is, in its essence, a month of humanist spirituality.

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#48. We must confront our own racism. Discriminatory housing and employment policies are nothing more than institutionalised racism.

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#49. Prayer is better than to sleep. Wake up. Wake up & pray. This is the way you free yourself.

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#50. That gentleness and kindness were the very essence of his teaching. He kept saying: God is gentle [rafiq] and he loves gentleness [ar-rifq] in everything.

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#51. There are in you two qualities that God loves: clemency [al-hilm] and forbearance [al-ana, "nobleness," "tolerance"].

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#52. The discriminations that are found in the Muslim majority countries are more Cultural than Islamic.
...
I have always said to the Muslim women, please do not nurture the victim mentality. Stand up for your rights.

Tariq Ramadan

#53. Only in the crucible of self-mastery can freedom be smelted

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#54. Islam, as a religion, has been established in France for a long time, and the religious question has been resolved in this country. Islam does not threaten France's future in any way.

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#55. To Islamize doesn't make sense to me. But to center, but to have intellectual empathy and modesty - all these dimensions are important on how we look at truth.

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#56. This simple truth is the essence of my message to Muslims throughout the world: know who you are, who you want to be, and start talking and working with whom you are not. Find common values and build with fellow citizens a society based on diversity and equality.

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#57. If you do not have boundaries, you do not have a path.

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#58. The desert is often the locus of prophecies because it naturally offers to the human gaze the horizons of the infinite.

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#59. South Africa is labouring to find its revolutionary path; the colours of the Rainbow Nation have difficulty blending together; the wealthy elites (white, black or Indian) profit from de facto segregation.

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#60. Violence against embassies and civilians must be categorically condemned. At the same time, we must attempt to understand why such events occur.

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#61. Mental ghettos are not mirages; they actually exist in palpable reality: being "open" inside one's mental or intellectual ghetto does not open its door but simply allows one to harbour the illusion that there is no ghetto and no door. The most dangerous prisons are those with invisible bars.

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#62. I'm not talking about reforming #Islam..it is to reform the #Muslim minds & the Muslim understandings of the texts.

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#63. There can be no universal without diversity: the quest for the ultimate commonality would be pointless if we did not recognize the initial differences that explain just why we have to go in search of the universal.

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#64. Lack of consistency is a weakness shared by all nations.

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#65. We must re-center philosophy within our frame of reference which I think is the way to deal with it.

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#66. There is One God. We have an epistemic center. There is meaning.

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#67. We must master our egoism, and through this mastery, step outside ourselves and educate ourselves in giving. Fasting requires that we rediscover all that is alive around us, and reconcile ourselves with our environment.

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#68. Clarity and consistency are not enough: the quest for truth requires humility and effort.

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#69. Now no one can deny the fact that whatever is the state of the affairs in the country, you did not have the army controlling the country and you have a pluralistic society anyway.

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#70. There is the philosophy embedded in the culture we are living. It is quite clear for example that Arabs have a different culture than Malaysians.

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#71. If you are not at peace with yourself then you cannot spread peace.

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#72. I don't like this vision that Turkey is successful because it is as successful as the western powers in economic terms. But I do think they are trying to find a new space in the multi-polar world, and this is what I am advocating. I don't think that Muslims have an alternative model.

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#73. It is of the highest importance to provide equal access to the labour market. Governments should act to establish equitable employment standards and penalise racial discrimination.

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#74. The logic of freedom of religion implies freedom to be an atheist, even though, from a historical perspective, this has not been accepted in the Muslim world.

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#75. History is replete with ideologies of freedom, justice, liberation of the downtrodden and the exploited, that have been turned against the very people they had mobilised, or that have reproduced the same logic of exclusion and terror toward those whom they claimed to set free.

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#76. Islam doesn't need reform, we need to reform the Muslim mind.

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#77. You can be a very charitable capitalist. Like [Nicola] Sarkozy was saying, we have to 'moralise capitalism', which for me is a contradiction in terms.

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#78. The great majority of Americans do not know much about Islam but nonetheless fear it as violent, expansionist and alien to their society. The problem to overcome is not hatred, but ignorance.

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#79. If you hear about your brother something of which you disapprove, seek from one to

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#80. Proud to be a Muslim isn't a stamp you have on your heart, it's a light you have in your heart.

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#81. To be courageous is to be a voice for the voiceless

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#82. The media is putting a lot of emphasis on the few people that are destroying, while it won't report on the silent majority of people who are constructing, building and trying to find their way.

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#83. To have a moral sense is not to be dogmatic in dealing with rules. It can be an open way with dealing with questions of objectives and purpose, which is completely different.

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#84. Just take Germany and the suffering of Jews during and after the Second World War. It would be legal to ridicule and to laugh at this suffering, but since it was such a trauma on the European conscience, no one is going to do it. It is an open scar, an open wound, an open reality.

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#85. Instead of looking outside of ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us.

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#86. Questioned by a Companion about the best possible hijrah, the Prophet was to answer: "It is to exile yourself [to move away] from evil [abominations, lies, sins]."12 This requirement of spiritual exile was to be repeated in different forms.

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#87. Part of the French political class is realising that there is are large number of Muslim people coming from the ghettos who want to make themselves heard, politically, especially about foreign policy issues. Its electoral weight can bring back to the forefront the Palestinian issue.

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#88. You're asking me how not to doubt. Good question.My answer is, you can't. This is life

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#89. When we begin to look around us, to observe individuals and societies, and to study philosophies and religions, we realize that our loneliness is shared. Our solitude is plural, and our singularity is the similarity between us.

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#90. There is great potential and deep fragility [in Malaysia] that can be used by any group that stresses on religion, pushing towards Islam, rejecting people and alienating migrants - anything can be used to win the next elections. So these are the signs of fragility that is very much there.

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#91. Muslims must decide, lest they end up divided by the very religion that calls upon them to unite.

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#92. Before God and in conscience, Muslims cannot satisfy themselves by repeating what the texts say and then snap their fingers at daily social realities: that would be to speak of an ideal while at the same time blind themselves as to their daily betrayal.

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#93. I had no intention to cover my tracks since I am not a politician and I do not represent anybody.

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#94. In the name of the rule of law, democracy and human rights, we cannot accept that the rights of individuals (Arab or Muslim) be trampled upon, or that populations are targeted and discriminated against in the name of the war against terrorism.

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#95. We are not competing for the good when we only compete for numbers, being preoccupied with how many converts we are gaining. The true competition for good only happens when we are implementing our values of justice.

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#96. Integration is a word of the past, the word of the future and the word of the present is contribution.

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#97. I have learned that one should say "Peace!" to those who shout their hatred for one's being and presence or at one's passage.

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#98. The desert, more than anything else, opens the human mind to observation, meditation, and initiation into meaning.

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#99. Your country needs religious leaders and religious politicians

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#100. To be more precise, it's ethics and liberation, and as a consequence there is an ethics of liberation.

Tariq Ramadan