Salman Rushdie Quotes

Throughout the past, there has been a lack of intimacy, affection, and regard for Islam by Christianity. This, to a large extent, has been due to a lack of knowledge of the great human and spiritual ideals for which Islam and the teachings of Islam stand.

I consider peace between world religions as a prerequisite for peace among the nations

Today we must secure not a clash between civilizations, but a reconciliation and bringing together of the values of Islam and Christianity.

I believe we don't need to widen the divide between the West and Islam. Rather, we need to build dialogue to encourage tolerance and respect.

I should like to repeat what I stated recently in the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia: It won't be the religion, but rather the world-view of some of its followers that shall be made current.

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned that many regions of this world are suffering from the effects of armed conflicts with religious aspects. I believe that the differences of faith are not the real reason for these conflicts.

Throughout my ministry, I have sought to build bridges between Jews and Christians.

I believe in the fundamental Truth of all the great religions of the world. I believe that they are all God given. I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.

Most of the conflict in the world today has religious causes so religious leaders can be instrumental in bringing peace.

Balance the cost of the soul you lost with the dreams you lightly sold.

If there were two princes in Christendom who had good will and courage, it would be very easy to reconcile the religious difficulties; there is only one Jesus Christ and one faith, and all the rest is a dispute over trifles.

All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.

We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully, an infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was ‘divide and conquer.’ But I say ‘unite and conquer.

Our problem is within ourselves. We have found the means to blow the world physically apart. Spiritually, we have yet to find the means to put together the world's broken pieces.

Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other.

We can never found the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched, even when we have everything we need in order to be happy.

You create a path of your own by looking within yourself and listening to your soul, cultivating your own ways of experiencing the sacred and then practicing it. Practicing until you make it a song that sings you.

Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.

Where is your heart? Is your heart with God? Is it with your own ego or your lust? Is it with your greed, your pride, envy, or your resentment? This is a time where you can go into yourself and ask: Where is my heart? Ramadan is a time to give the heart back to the One who possesses the hearts.

If you could leave your selfishness, you would see how you've been torturing your soul.

The spirit must be freed from tethers so strong and feelings never put to rest, so that the lift of life may give buoyancy to the soul. In many families, there are hurt feelings and a reluctance to forgive. It doesn’t really matter what the issue was. It cannot and should not be left to injure. Blame keeps wounds open. Only forgiveness heals. George Herbert, an early 17th-century poet, wrote these lines: ‘He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven, for everyone has need of forgiveness.’

It's quite common for a Sufi mystic to cry in ecstasy that he's neither a Jew, a Christian, nor a Muslim. He is at home equally in a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, or a church because when one's glimpsed the divine, one's left these man-made distinctions behind.

Let us pray for peace: peace in the world and in each of our hearts.

The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.