Munira Mirza Quotes

Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable.

It is time Australian Muslims stop being treated as negotiable citizens in their own country. It is time people stop 'tolerating' us, presuming some right to decide if we have a place in our own home.

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.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people, but they have a lot of credibility because all the other liberal parties have been smothered for 30 years.

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.

I draw a distinction between traditional Islam and Islamism. Islamism emerged in its modern form in the 1920s and is driven by a belief that Muslims can be strong and rich again if they follow the Islamic law severely and in its entirety. This is a response to the trauma of modern Islam.

Political Islam is exclusive in its claims.

… 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.

If the Shiites in a Sunni-dominated country insisted on practicing their religion openly, then … the Sunni state had no choice but to wage war on them.

The Mussulmans are not a Minority. The Mussulmans are a nation by any definition.

An Islamic world is growing more conservative, religious, and hostile towards the United States with each passing day.

It is only through the complete and surgical isolation of the extremist element within Islamic nations and societies that a way can be found out of the tidal wave of terror and hatred that is being built up.

Pakistan’s military and intelligence services have, for decades, used religious parties for recruits.

The West is in for a long, irregular confrontation - not with terrorism, which is simply a tactic, but with radical Islam.

If you woke up this morning and you are breathing, and you are Muslim, then you are political. You have no choice but to be political in a country that has politicized you and politicized your religion.

The fundamental question I believe is, 'Is political Islam in our best interest?' If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?

The very idea of a Party of God, Hizbollah, puts the fear of God into British hearts.

There's a difference between being a fundamentalist and being al-Qaeda and being Muslim. It's absurd to think otherwise.

While the primary focus continues to be on religious minorities - the Christian religious minorities and the Jewish community - ISIS will also go after people who interpret and believe the Muslim faith differently than they do.

I did not come into Parliament to be a Muslim MP. And I have never set myself up as a Muslim spokesperson or community leader. Just as ordinary citizens have multiple identities, so do MPs.

I always found it ironic when a Saudi official bashes Islamists, given that Saudi Arabia is the mother of all political Islam - and even describes itself as an Islamic state in its 'Higher Law.'

If the Islamic world is so suffused with rage and hatred of us - for our wars, occupations, drone attacks, support of Israel, decadent culture, and tolerance of insults to Islam and the Prophet - why should we call for free elections, when the people will use those elections to vote into power rulers hostile to the United States?

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.

On Islam, it is true that I am tough. Perhaps tougher than I should be if my only aim was to get votes.

We have to go into fundamentalist mosques; we have to stop foreign financing of Islamist groups.