Daniel Pipes Quotes

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.

If they analyze the situation as thoroughly as they should, Muslims will realize they are the first targets. What are the fundamentalists really after? Simply taking over Islam and then turning its back on modernity.

… the Middle East has experienced a general ‘Islamization’ and radicalization of society ensuing from the rigid religious and often intolerant character of the civil society organizations now performing functions previously in the hands of state authorities.

For most of the West, democracy has tempered literal religion. For the Islamic world, literal religion has inhibited and obstructed democracy.

Strong Islamist trends make a fundamentalist Palestine more likely than a small state under a secular government.

Arab nationalism, which tended to be until relatively recent somewhat secular in motivation, has now become increasingly religious and fundamentalist. And that makes it more pervasive, more difficult to deal with.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

You are right, but the weakness does not come from the millions of Muslims in the world. They do not mind being radical, they have no fear to speak out and to protest and to jihad.

Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society.

Traditional Moslems have much the same outlook as traditional Jews and traditional Christians. On the other hand, radical Islam has been gaining ground…. Islam has been around for more than a millennium and radical Islam has only been around for a couple of hundred years.

Saddam Hussein wishes to return Islam to blasphemy and polytheism ... if America becomes victorious ... and grants victory to Saddam, Islam will receive such a blow that it will not be able to raise its head for a long time ...The issue is one of Islam versus blasphemy, and not of Iran versus Iraq

One cannot deal with present day Islam by simply repeating the linear chronological account of its historical spread, the theological-juridical frames of its articulation as a system of beliefs and non-beliefs fixed by God, dedicated to the pious observance of the faithful, and the no less conformist and repetitive transcriptions of the Islamicists which have been adopted by political scientists to describe present-day Islam.

I've always maintained there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy. The Europeans in general confuse Islam and Islamism. Islamism is a political movement that instrumentalises the religion to get to power, which has nothing to do with religion. Islam here in Tunisia is a religion of openness, of tolerance.

The clash of civilizations or the clash between Islam and the West may be cliches. But there is an even bigger cliche around: that this clash actually goes on within Islam, between reformists and fanatics.

Religiosity amongst younger Muslims is not about following their parents' cultural traditions, but rather, their interest in religion is more politicized.

Muslim societies must leave behind these dual aspects: secularism/Islamism.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salifist parties are a real force in the Egyptian society.

The enemy is not just terrorism. It is the threat posed specifically by Islamist terrorism, by Bin Ladin and others who draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within a minority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion, and distorts both.

After all, from the Muslim Brotherhood's inception in Egypt in 1928, it has been a revolutionary organization committed to the imposition worldwide of a totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine they call shariah.

There is an ideology problem in Islam. We need to revolutionize our religion.

If new, moderate leadership doesn’t persevere, we will see growing Muslim fundamentalism in America. The neoconservatives have recognized this, but their frightening solutions thwart progressive Muslims and empower extremists who argue that Westerners are intent on destroying Islam.

I am not big on the idea that a rapid injection of democracy will reform radical Moslems.

If radical Islam is ever to be shunted aside it will be by other Moslems with alternate interpretations.

Islamists want power!

Jihad is the struggle for Muslim society to rule the entire world.