Leila Aboulela Quotes

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.

Today's Islamic fundamentalism is also a cover for political motifs. We should not overlook the political motifs we encounter in forms of religious fanaticism.

ISIS and radical Islam have declared war on us not because of anything we have done - not because we are a friend to Israel and not because we have not yet toppled the bloody Syrian dictator Assad. ISIS and radical Islamists hate us for who we are. The irony is, we ourselves do not know who we are.

Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?

Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.

I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.

Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.

My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.

I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions.

All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.

For years, Hizb-I-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers.

Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.

I turned atheist in the '90s when India went through troubled times - communal riots, bomb blasts... Mumbai, where I live, was badly affected. I blamed religion; also, extremists on both sides - right and left.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

The only place in the Middle East where you can find moderate Moslems speaking is in those international conferences sponsored by Westerners…. They cannot have much of an influence if they are undermined by the majority and the fundamentalist clergy.

Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity.

It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.

Like its Islamic fundamentalist cousins, the religious right is waging a jihad against the civic state.

There shall not be two religions in Arabia.

We in the West tend to think of a nation subdivided into different religions. Islam sees itself as a religion subdivided into different nations.

The danger of the Shiite heretics to the region, is not less than the danger of the Jews and the Christians.

In Spain you are a Catholic or you are nothing.

The more fundamentalists they get us in Afghanistan the better it is for us because they will kill more communists.

The Islamic world perceive Western nations as defending Judeo-Christian tradition against the spread of radical militant Islam.