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America did not invade Iraq because Iraqis are Muslims. Oil, money, economic interests. Who knows? But it was not because Iraqis are Muslims.
Maajid Nawaz -
I’m a Muslim, we come from a Muslim community and we are very critical of western or American foreign policy. So if I’ve got the right and if other Muslims have got the right to criticize… likewise everyone else has also got the right to criticize everything else.
Maajid Nawaz
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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.
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.
Maajid Nawaz -
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.
Maajid Nawaz -
Having our fundamental assumptions about life challenged is never a comfortable thing.
Maajid Nawaz -
We cannot hope to effectively counter extremism if we just focus on schools, universities and prisons: we need to take this online as well.
Maajid Nawaz -
There are members - very, very close and dear members - of my family - I'm talking immediate family - who simply don't speak to me anymore and haven't done so for years. My marriage fell apart.
Maajid Nawaz
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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.
Maajid Nawaz -
By the age of 24, I found myself convicted in prison in Egypt, being blacklisted from three countries in the world for attempting to overthrow their governments, being subjected to torture in Egyptian jails, and sentenced to five years as a prisoner of conscience.
Maajid Nawaz -
Liberalism will beat totalitarianism by killing it softly, not by mimicking it.
Maajid Nawaz -
Islam will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it.
Maajid Nawaz -
Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism.
Maajid Nawaz -
Non-violent extremism is essentially the increase of intolerant and bigoted demands made by groups seeking to dominate society.
Maajid Nawaz
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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.
Maajid Nawaz -
I was imprisoned in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Egypt's state security was rounding people up in unprecedented numbers.
Maajid Nawaz -
Quilliam will remain a priority for me because its values shape my beliefs and outlook.
Maajid Nawaz -
After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.
Maajid Nawaz -
Hizb ut-Tahrir spearheaded the radicalization of the 1990s and cultivated an atmosphere of anger.
Maajid Nawaz -
I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty's 'soft' approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge.
Maajid Nawaz
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I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
Maajid Nawaz -
The only certainty we have is that those who are certain of a way to arrive at worldly salvation, are committed enough to organize around this, and seek power to enforce it, will invariably descend into a bloody totalitarian fascism.
Maajid Nawaz -
Neoconservatism had the philosophy that you go in with a supply-led approach to impose democratic values from the top down. Whereas Islamists and far-right organizations, for decades, have been building demand for their ideology on the grassroots.
Maajid Nawaz -
There are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. There is no equivalent of Al-Qaeda without the terrorism.
Maajid Nawaz