Maajid Nawaz Quotes
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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.
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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.
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My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.
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There has been a failure to grasp how competing narratives fight for the attention of angry young Muslims, and we have grossly underestimated the appeal of the jihadist brand.
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We cannot hope to effectively counter extremism if we just focus on schools, universities and prisons: we need to take this online as well.
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Having our fundamental assumptions about life challenged is never a comfortable thing.
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The fact is that there is a serious problem of extremism with minority groups within Muslim communities.
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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.
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Quilliam will remain a priority for me because its values shape my beliefs and outlook.
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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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Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.
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Islam will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it.
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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.
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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.
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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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The truth is that just as the 'West' is not a homogenous entity with one view on foreign and domestic policy, nor are Muslims.
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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.
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The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.
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Liberalism will beat totalitarianism by killing it softly, not by mimicking it.
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I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
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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.
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After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.
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Expressing myself through language was always something that I had had to learn to do more so than others.
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Increased sympathy for an Islamist cause, lack of integration, and the absence of acceptance of Muslims into British society makes it harder for Muslims to challenge Islamism and tough for non-Muslims to understand it.