Irshad Manji Quotes

Guys like Bin Laden have been responsible for injuring and maiming and murdering more Muslims than any foreign imperial power has in the last hundred years.

The suicide-bombing community is not absolutely 100 percent religious, but it is pretty nearly 100 percent religious.

The world is now aware that the most unavoidable and most dangerous weapon that exists is the blind decisiveness of a man ready to sacrifice his life for an obscure cause.

We love death as much as the Westerners love life. Therefore we will win.

Terrorism and extremism bear different names and labels. It uses diverse causes. But in each case, it is driven by distortion of religion and a misguided belief in its power to succeed.

Do you call the people in Los Angeles in the nineties - do you call them rebels or opposition ? They are rebels. They are not rebels even, they are beheading. This opposition, opposing country or government, by beheading ? By barbecuing heads ? By eating the hearts of your victim ? Is that opposition ? What do you call the people who attacked the two towers on the 11th of September ? Opposition ? Even if they're not Americans, I know this, but some of them I think have nationality - I think one of them has American nationality. Do you call him opposition or terrorist ?

Where radical Islamism is going to be a factor, it's going to be very, very tough.

What the fundamentalists are doing is a total negation of their own faith - encouraging and lionizing suicide bombers and killing women and children, hardly in keeping with the teachings of Prophet Mohammed.

Osama bin Laden is very shrewd. But he struck me, even in 1997, as being remarkably out of touch. I remember thinking this does not look like the type of guy who walks to the top of a mountain with a mobile phone and says, "Operation B, attack."Now he is America's number one enemy. He's always wanted to be that.

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.

To me, every fundamentalist Muslim, no matter how peaceable in his own behavior, is part of a murderous movement and is thus, in some fashion, a foot soldier in the war that bin Laden has launched against civilization.

If there is one Osama bin Laden now, there will be 100 bin Ladens afterwards.

I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.

Terrorists convince thousands of people to kill themselves in the name of God. I can't convince two of my friends to help me move.

The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives.

We know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has some very dangerous, very important leaders who are tied directly to the top leadership of al Qaeda central, including a man who was formerly Osama bin Laden's secretary.

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.

Jihad will continue even if I am not around.

Of course, Islamist terrorists must be captured or killed and their networks disrupted. But to stop their movement’s growth, their ideology must also be undermined.

The Fiqh Council of North America wishes to reaffirm Islam's absolute condemnation of terrorism and religious extremism. Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden -- and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not martyrs.

I can in one week assemble five hundred faithful ready to throw themselves into suicide operations. No frontier will stop them.

Terrorists aren’t states; they are martyrs with no address.

Head for jihad and have your guns ready.

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