Tamim Ansary Quotes & Sayings

If everyone were allowed to interpret the ambiguous passages for themselves, their conclusions might diverged wildly. People would move apart in as many different directions as there were people, the community would fragment, and the world swallow up the pieces and who was to say the great revelation would not then vanish as if it had never been? — Tamim Ansary

Here are two enormous worlds side by side; what's remarkable is how little notice they have taken of each other. If the Western and Islamic worlds were two individual human beings, we might see symptoms of repression here. We might ask, What happened between these two? Were they lovers once? Is there some history of abuse? — Tamim Ansary

In short, this or that behavior wasn't good because scripture said so. Scripture mandated this or that behavior because it was good, and if it was already good before scripture said so, then it was good for some reason inherent to itself, some reason that reason could discover. — Tamim Ansary

We need solitude, because when we're alone, we're free from obligations, we don't need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts. — Tamim Ansary

What the Muslim world has reified over the course of history is the idea that society should be divided into a men's and a women's realm and that the point of connection between the two should only be in the private arena, so that sexuality can be eliminated as a factor in the public life of the community. — Tamim Ansary

One side charges, 'You are decadent.' The other side retorts, 'We are free.' These are not opposing contentions; they're nonsequiturs. — Tamim Ansary