Hamza Yusuf Quotes

I myself am Muslim and I stand on the side of an open society.

I'd like to say is that I am a patriotic, loyal American. I love my country and the values that it stands for. And I am a Muslim.

To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death.

I talk to the young generation and advise them to be both fully Muslim and fully Western citizens, to be free, to speak out, to express themselves. We have new generations of Muslims who were born in the West, coming from within, and they are well educated and they understand. Some sisters and brothers are ready, yes, even though I can see young sisters and brothers who are also obsessed with their social status, their titles, their salary and are scared to not be tolerated.

No one can be a true Muslim and a true American simultaneously.

For me, I think that the struggle around how to deal with Islam in the United States is the defining moral struggle of this half of the new century.

I feel like one of the things that is central to American life is the religious experience, and I think that the experience of being Muslim in America is as valid and as important a perspective on the religious experience of America as evangelical Christianity or Judaism - whatever it may be.

I as a Muslim want you, as a Christian, to really be a perfect Christian. I want my Jewish friends to be perfect Jews, to live according to the highest principles of what it means to be a Jew, to be a Christian, to be a Muslim.

The fact that Western Muslims are free means that they can have enormous impact. But it would be wrong to claim that we are imposing our ways on the West. New ideas are now coming from the West. To be traditional is not so much a question of protecting ourselves as to be traditionalist in principle.

I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned.

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

Islam and its tradition have until now encountered modernity as a cultural aggression (al-ghazw al-fikri), not as a historical phenomenon.

A separate federation of Muslim provinces reformed on the lines I have suggested above, is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of non-Muslims.

To the millions of non-Christians who live in this country, “our” culture is not their culture and they have not assimilated Christmas carols. Most people take their religion far too seriously to look upon religious songs as forms of art only. The day “Silent Night” is sung in Buddhist Temples and Jewish Synagogues throughout the United States is the day that “Silent Night” will have been assimilated into “our” culture.”

It is better for Muslims not to settle in non-Muslim societies.

I’m trying to be a real Muslim, who respects others and respects the freedom of the people to choose their own religious denominations or even to not believe in God in the first place.

I don't have a problem with other people having different faith; my problem is if we confuse respecting that with surrendering our own faith.

I don't think being a Muslim or being a non-Muslim has been an advantage or disadvantage.

There's this idea that when you say you're Muslim, that you're either all in or you're trying to escape it. I love the idea of gradations and levels, just like everybody else has.

I want to show people there's not just one way of being Muslim.

I'm not going to allow this world to make my son scared of saying he's a Muslim.

Particularly as a Jew, I don't like missionary work. I've had it focused on me, and I don't like it. Let people be what they want to be.

It's always hard to talk about the culture that you are from, especially with Islam, it is a very sensitive subject and I don't want to be seen to be adding to the problems of Islam and the west.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.

There is no religious or any kind of a gender that should separate you from any religious ideas.