Barack Obama Quotes

Historians in the future will surely wonder what went so wrong when the United States, for the first time ever, focused its foreign policy on the Islamic world.

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.

Looking at Islam in its original sense, it is very much like the Abrahamic tradition.

Stories of the Crusades are still told in Moslem cafes and families as if they occurred yesterday.

If you go and live with these Arabs, you will find that they cannot understand our ideas of freedom and human dignity. They have lived so long under dictatorships of one kind or another, how can we expect them to run successfully a free government?

Baghdad is the capital of the Caliphate

Islam came with a camel. It came through trade.

I'm afraid that a lot of things that people believe about Islam are totally different from the religion that most of us recognize. I was really fortunate that I got to know Islam before it became a headline.

I grew up in Jerusalem and went to school here. I studied at the Hebrew University - mostly Islam and Arabic: Arab literature, Arab poetry and culture, because I felt like we are living in this region, in the Middle East, and we are not alone: There are nations here whose culture is Arab.

Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

The Holy Koran tells us, 'O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.'

I can tell you squat about Islam. I don’t know anything about it. But I know a goddamn lot about al Qaeda and I want them all to burn in hell.

It was through the Hindu religion that I learnt to respect Christianity and Islam.

I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised.

Toppling secular dictators in the Middle East has only led to chaos and the rise of radical Islam.

The first and most important necessity is the creation of a modus vivendi with the Arab people.

A friendly study of the world's religions is a sacred duty.

When somebody is flying airplanes into buildings and killing innocent people in the name of God, it makes you question why do they have that interpretation and somebody else has another interpretation, and how many people of Muslim faith would agree with that, and what are the different aspects of different people's religions that is so divisive, rather than being unifying?

Some Westerners […] have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.

Religion is a form of nourishment. It is difficult to appreciate the flavor and food-value of something one has never eaten.

If I had the money I'd pay people to have them read accurate books or posts about our own religion. It is very important not only for their self-image, but also for the future of Europe - as a biological term.

I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that ... I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul.

How did the Turks become Muslim? They became Muslim through the Sufis. The Arabs never conquered the Turks. There were people in early Islam who were speaking like Hallaj, who spoke about the Truth, about reaching the Truth, about being one with the Truth, and not only they were not killed, but they were great heroes of their own culture, and there is a university in Turkey named after one [Sufi Saint.]

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam.

The United States does not have a very good record in the Middle East. I think they have the best of intentions but I think the problem is that it's very difficult from Washington, or from Iowa or Nebraska to understand what is happening in this crazy part of the world. In some cases US diplomacy has been somewhat naive.