Tom Cotton Quotes

Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have to win some very terrible wars in the future.

The West has been calling for years for the forces of moderate Islam to stand up to the very small percentage but very large number of radical Muslims all around the world. When countries - the U.A.E. or Egypt or Jordan - do that, we need to highlight it, we need to celebrate it, and we need to continue to encourage it.

America doesn't have the moral authority or weight to tip the scales in this fight between moderate Islam and less tolerant Islam. Muslim communities and Muslim nations need to be leading edge of this fight.

Our strategy should be to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims.

We must work with moderate Moslems who are also the victims of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

Islam does have two faces—a bright face and an evil face, and we must work with the former. The reaction of Moslems against Islamic extremism doesn’t get the coverage it should.

Moderate Islam? That's a contradiction.

They both share the same ideology. The Muslim Brotherhood is the origin of it all. [ISIS Al Qaeda & other islamic terrorist organizations]

It's not that we have two different kinds of Islam. I acknowledge the fact that we have two kinds of people. There are moderate Muslims and non-moderate Muslims. But there is really only one Islam, and this is the Islam of the life of Muhammad, of the Quran, of the Hadiths, of the Sunnah.

It's important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally.

The idea is that they wouldn't want to deal with militant Islam but an Islam and Muslims who are committed to progress, committed to development, who like peace and are moderate in their ways. So that's what we are doing here.

If radical Islam is ever to be shunted aside it will be by other Moslems with alternate interpretations.

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.

The genuine separation of mosque and state and the effective governance of religious institutions will facilitate better religious education and reintroduce moderate Islamic thinking...

Islam is misunderstood by many. The extremists grab the headlines; those of us who want to practise our religion and live under this country's laws do not make the news.

ISIL is not 'radical Islam.' Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Muslim Brotherhood - these are radical Islamic groups. They resort to armed struggle and terrorism to move toward their goals. But they are also deeply political organizations that have internal rules, standards, and codes of conduct.

Obviously, there's always a battle over philosophical leanings and persuasions, but the bottom line here is that Americans need to understand that this is an ideology in jihadist terrorism that is dangerous beyond words, and we need the moderate Muslim voices to be heard here if this is to be diminished in Islam itself.

The Muslim Brotherhood has decades of violent history covertly operating in the United States and is recognized by experts as having 100 times more active members than Al-Qaeda.

It’s a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution.

Practically the only way to dry the swamp of radical Islam is through economic development and an improved standard of living.

But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims, the overwhelming majority of Muslims, are loyal Americans.

The vast majority of Muslims are moderates working for a better future and seeking a peaceful life.

I think it's been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people going to church on Sunday morning.

As a result of that, America desires a moderate Islam; an Islam that America can control; an Islam that America can give direction to and give orders to its leaders.

The Islamist ideology took decades to incubate within our communities, and it will take decades to debunk.