Maajid Nawaz Quotes

We must maximize our efforts to counter violent extremism, radicalization and recruitment in the United States and stop using xenophobia and ethnic stereotyping.

The threat from terrorists - from extreme ideologies - needs to be challenged head-on.

You've got problems in Central Asia. And you've got problems within our own communities back home. So if we end up saying, look, this has nothing to do with Islam or it's got no connection with that broader question, then we look, frankly, as if we're in denial about the problem. And the interesting thing in the Middle East is that they have absolutely no problem there in identifying that as Islamist extremism and calling it that.

The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.

I think what happened with 9/11 is that people sort of felt that it came from nowhere. Whereas I think now we understand the roots are very deep. I say it's like revolutionary Communism, something that is going to have to be knocked out over a very long period of time. This strain of extremism continues to be very strong, whether it's in Afghanistan, or Somalia or Yemen, or any of these places.

If you can educate Muslims about their biggest enemy, and if you can solve the problem, the ideological problem, it doesn't give an immediate result, but it's the best thing over the long term.

This is a problem that Islam has. I called upon Muslim leaders to call out and denounce these murders, these terrorists. Decrying violence isn't enough.

Our enemy is not Islam. Islam is not the enemy of America; Americans are not the enemy of Islam. Our real enemy is extremism and radicalism.

Preventing radicalization that leads to violence here in America is part of our larger strategy to decisively defeat al Qaeda.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of extreme ideology. They are the godfather of all terrorist organizations. They spread it all over the world.

Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam.

Islamic law is clearly against terrorism, against any kind of deliberate killing of civilians or similar 'collateral damage.'

Extremism, under whatever guise, fanaticism of whatever kind, factionalism of whatever persuasion would be faithful, poisonous plants and the soil of our country which will not be allowed to flourish.

The War on Terrorism does not distinguish between ordinary terrorists and those espousing a political ideology.

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.

You can’t negotiate with them. You can’t buy them off. They want a change of the world. The only way to defeat the Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists is to persuade them to abandon their effort…. It must be an intellectual victory.

Extremism destroyed those before you.

You cannot bomb extremism into submission

Islam is not the enemy, religious extremism is.

The war on terrorism is a war of ideas.

There is a lot of talk of the growth of radicalization [of Moslems in America]. Yes there has been growth, but between December 11, 2001 and December 31, 2009, we had 46 cases prosecuted… so I would say that the number of extremists are very small. Let’s stay calm.

All extremists derive from one pool. This extreme mind-set is nurtured by religious rhetoric that needs to be reformed.

ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

What we have seen with Islamist extremism, whether it is in Mali or Somalia or Afghanistan, is that the disease is not necessarily the individual country. The disease is the Islamist extremism, and that's what we have to fight; that's the narrative that we have to beat.

Violent extremism is going viral, but our response to it is moving at bureaucratic, sluggish speed.