Muslim Experience Quotes

I'm not a stranger to the persecution that Muslims have faced over the years.

A foreign ideology cannot be introduced into Chechnya - were it through an Arab or al-Qaeda. Our experience is rich and long enough for us to be Muslims and know what jihad is.

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.

As a British Muslim, I am no stranger to prejudice. I know what it's like to be discriminated against just because of your background or religion.

If you convert to Islam after a couple of decades of being a black man in the U.S., the discrimination you receive as a Muslim doesn't feel like a shock.

I did a lot of things as a Muslim that I am sorry for now.

I'm Egyptian and Muslim, but I grew up in the West, far from my Arab roots. I began 'Sex and the Citadel' to help outsiders - like myself - to better comprehend this pivotal part of the world, up-close and personal.

In spite of the polls, the fact is that American Muslims are very happy and they thrive in this country.

There's something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It's like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.

I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.

It took me a long time to square with the fact that none of my experiences are typical - I'm not a typical American, but I'm also not a typical Muslim.

My kids are the reason I continue to strive for something better. They know - as kids who are Muslim, Somali, black Americans - that they've always been part of a struggle and that change isn't easy.

I'm used to always being different, in any context. People always want to know how I grew up, so I just say I grew up Muslim. That's the truth. Two Muslim girls can write me two extremely different letters - and they do. Some are very supportive, and some question what I do.

Some Muslim students experience secularism as an act of aggression.

Talk to me 20 years ago and I had a complete sense of illegitimacy as an American Muslim. I felt like I wasn't authentic. But I don't understand and I don't believe or subscribe to this idea that I don't have a right to speak as a Muslim because I'm an American. Being Muslim is to accept and honor the diversity that we have in this world, culturally and physically, because that's what Islam teaches, that we are people of many tribes. I think the American Muslim experience is of a different tribe than the Saudi Muslim world, but that doesn't make us less than anyone else.

I love my job... but I find myself awkwardly straddling the divide between British Islam and the British media. I get pretty exhausted of having to constantly endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations, and often inaccurate and baseless stories.

If you were asking me how it is to be a Muslim in America, it's much harder to be a North African in France than to be a foreigner here in America.

You are an American, so you're hurt that other American citizens have been hurt, but you end up having to shoulder the shame for something that you don't even believe. There's a lot of years where Muslims have dealt with having to make themselves very small and not disrupt the flow and not - make sure that you're not noticed because, you know, deep down inside people are not really excited that you're around .