Feisal Abdul Rauf Quotes
'Jihad' can mean holy war to extremists, but it means struggle to the average Muslim.
Rauf, Feisal Abdul. What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America. HarperCollins, 2005.
This is a wonderful quotation which illustrates the polarization which had taken place in America as a result of the slavery issue. Lincoln’s address—which history and most people have adjudged to be such a moderate attempt to find common ground, and which offended many of his constituents because he was compromising and temporizing on the slavery issue—was seen as the radical attacks of a “fanatic”. There is probably no policy that Lincoln or any other President could have followed that would be even marginally acceptable to the slave owners and their economies and the abolitionists and their economies. In the final analysis, slavery was the kind of issue that is not susceptible to compromise. No nation can exist half slave and half free. The Civil War was inevitable unless the South would give up slavery or the North would accept it.
The following day, Norquay publicly apologized.
This clause has been the cause of immense problems in the Mid-East. Hamas castigates any Palestinian who even suggests that there should be negotiations with Israel that are sincere as nothing less than the end of Israel is consistent with their charter. Anyone who uses the peace process for anything else but tactical advantage and buying time to strike again is a traitor. Meanwhile, the clause is taken be Israel to demonstrate that there is no point to any negotiations so long as the Palestinian Authority allows such an organization with this charter clause to be legal and operate in the open. The Palestinian Authority leadership are not willing to risk a civil war, and thus little or no progress is made.
Feisal Abdul Rauf (Arabic: فيصل عبد الرؤوف, born 1948) is an American Sufi imam, author, and activist whose stated goal is to improve relations between the Muslim world and the West. From 1983 to 2009, he served as Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a mosque in New York City. He has written three books on Islam and its place in contemporary Western society, including What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America, and founded two non-profit organizations whose stated missions are to enhance the discourse on Islam in society.