Maajid Nawaz Quotes
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When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.
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Hizb ut-Tahrir spearheaded the radicalization of the 1990s and cultivated an atmosphere of anger.
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I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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Before someone can change his ideas, he has to open his heart.
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I really didn't grow up religious, and I didn't grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani.
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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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I used to MC a bit when I was young - 14 or 15 years old.
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The only way that we can win over potential jihadists to liberal democracy is by winning the battle of ideas.
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Wherever I've been, I've left people who joined Hizb ut-Tahrir. I have to make amends. What I did was damaging to British society and the world at large.
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Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my - it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I've called it the re-humanisation process.
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I'm yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn't homophobic, that isn't bigoted to the out group.
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The University of Westminster is well known for being a hotbed of extremist activity.
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If the dangers of racism are apparent, even in a non-violent form, then it was the same for Islamism. Communalist identity politics, self-segregation and group-think are far more damaging to societies in the long run than the odd bomb going off here or there, because it is such a milieu that keeps breeding bomb-makers.
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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.
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The British and French governments have taken a strong stance against 'extremist content' online when addressing their approach to tackling extremism.
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In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism.
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No form of theocracy, whether it's manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.
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No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion [Islam] is not Islamophobia.
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Once you subscribe to an ideological dogma as a solution to certain grievances, it then frames your mindset.