QUOTES by Maajid Nawaz
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The way to tackle Muslimphobia is to tackle prejudice against Muslims. What it is not is to pretend that Islamist extremism does not exist.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
For years, Islamists and other extremists have taken advantage of grievances of Muslims in Britain and have successfully identified ways to integrate them under one 'Islamic' banner.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
The first point of contact for radicalisation is almost always a personal one. Prisons and universities, for example, tend to be easily and regularly infiltrated by radical groups, who use them as forums to propagate their ideas.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
I care not to debate which came first, Islamism or anti-Muslim bigotry; suffice to say that both feed into each other symbiotically.
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The cheeky ideal I am calling for is that Muslims should be viewed as equal citizens, nothing more and nothing less.
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'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.
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The truth is that just as the 'West' is not a homogenous entity with one view on foreign and domestic policy, nor are Muslims.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
The fact is that there is a serious problem of extremism with minority groups within Muslim communities.
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I have founded Khudi, in Pakistan, a youth movement which tries to counter extremist ideology through healthy discussion and debate.
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Quilliam will remain a priority for me because its values shape my beliefs and outlook.
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Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence.
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As I went between the Islamic Society in my college and university, the mosque, the halal takeaway, and visited the homes of my male Muslim friends, it was entirely possible for me to get through my day without interacting in any meaningful way with a single non-Muslim.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
During my teenage years as an Islamist recruiter, I moved to live in self-contained communities in the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
De-radicalisation begins by breaking down the logic which once seemed unassailable and rethinking what you are fighting for and why. That is hard to do when Islamists and Islamophobes feed off each other's hateful cliches.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
Yes, women should be free to cover their faces when walking down the street. But in our schools, hospitals, airports, banks and civil institutions, it is not unreasonable - nor contrary to the teachings of Islam - to expect women to show the one thing that allows the rest of us to identify them... namely, their face.
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The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
Let me make this clear: it is our duty to adopt a policy barring the wearing of niqabs in these public buildings.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
Any item of clothing that covers the face and makes it impossible to identify individuals is open to abuse.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
In the United Kingdom, we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
Traditionally, open-minded secular liberal rationalists have not made a case for tolerance.
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Satire is, by definition, offensive. It is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. It is meant to make us scratch our heads, think, do a double-take, and then think again.
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Not all Muslims wish to express themselves in public through a communal religious identity. Identities are multiple, and some may wish to speak instead just as citizens in their professional capacity, through their political party, or their neighborhood body.
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Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism.
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Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
Being veterans of the struggle to push back against fundamentalist Christians, American liberals are well acquainted with the pitfalls of the neoconservative flirtation with the religious-right.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
There were people who had sampled my voice from speeches when I was an Islamist and made them the chorus of pro-Islamist rap songs who then began talking about me as an apostate.
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I was in prison with the assassins of the former president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, who was killed in 1981. Those who weren't executed in that case were given life sentences, and two of those were with me in prison.
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In current times, our moral uproar is best reserved for those who aspire to stone men or women to death, not those who consensually watch women - or men, for that matter - dance.
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My feminism, as intended by me, extends to empowering women to make legal choices, not to judge the legal choices they make. My fight is for rights.
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I am a Muslim. I am born to Muslim parents. I have a Muslim son. I have been imprisoned and witnessed torture for my previous understanding of my religion.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
To suggest that a Muslim cannot think for himself sounds to me very much like an incident of anti-Muslim bigotry.
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To be forced to defend oneself is an inherently undesirable position to be in. The focus shifts from ideas to the person conveying them.
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Back when I was an Islamist, I thought our ideology was like communism - and I still do. That makes me optimistic. Because what happened to communism? It was discredited as an idea. It lost.
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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.
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My upbringing was completely liberal from the start. In fact, I didn't even have a Muslim identity.
Quote by -Maajid Nawaz
I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
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I became, suddenly, not just a Muslim in faith. I became a Muslim in politics. Somebody whose politics were pre-defined by one interpretation of Islam.
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All my friends were non-Muslims. I actually knew very little about Islam - like, very little.
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I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college.
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I was born and raised in Essex, just outside London, to a financially comfortable, well-educated Pakistani family.
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The University of Westminster is well known for being a hotbed of extremist activity.
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I think I would encourage leaders to start working with communities in order to inoculate angry, young teenagers.
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My arrest in Egypt happened in 2002, and I was convicted to five years as a political prisoner.
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