Maajid Nawaz Quotes
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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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The fact is that there is a serious problem of extremism with minority groups within Muslim communities.
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A fatwa is a religious edict. Such edicts bind only those who seek to follow the Imam issuing them but can be regarded as an option for others seeking an alternative view.
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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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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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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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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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Having our fundamental assumptions about life challenged is never a comfortable thing.
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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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Quilliam will remain a priority for me because its values shape my beliefs and outlook.
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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 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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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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I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they've joined.
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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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Liberalism will beat totalitarianism by killing it softly, not by mimicking it.
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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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I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
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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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I was imprisoned in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Egypt's state security was rounding people up in unprecedented numbers.
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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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Hizb ut-Tahrir spearheaded the radicalization of the 1990s and cultivated an atmosphere of anger.
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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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Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism.