Nawaz Quotes & Sayings

to tell people to stop practicing their faith was imperialism in nineties clothing, a colonial hangover bordering on racism. Instead, we were embraced as a new generation of anti-colonial politicized youth. Curiously, — Maajid Nawaz

There are members - very, very close and dear members - of my family - I'm talking immediate family - who simply don't speak to me anymore and haven't done so for years. My marriage fell apart. — Maajid Nawaz

I had the assassins of the former president of Egypt, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was with me in prison, the leaders of my own former group Hizb ut-Tahrir were with me in prison and so by the time I was released at the age of 28, I wasn't the man who went in at 24. — Maajid Nawaz

Daughter follows mother in actions and habits and some times also follows her granny. — Tayyab Nawaz Sulehri

I worked my way through the education system and was treated as though I had value. — Maajid Nawaz

After the Islamic State, even al-Qaeda appears 'moderate'. — Maajid Nawaz

Hizb ut-Tahrir spearheaded the radicalization of the 1990s and cultivated an atmosphere of anger. — Maajid Nawaz

More violence does not necessarily equate with greater religious conviction. — Maajid Nawaz

The only way we can challenge Islamism is to engage with one another. We need to make it as abhorrent as racism has become today. Only then will we stem the tide of angry young Muslims who turn to hate. — Maajid Nawaz

I care not to debate which came first, Islamism or anti-Muslim bigotry; suffice to say that both feed into each other symbiotically. — Maajid Nawaz

You call her a Bitch,
Because she throws attitude?
Gentlemen, You need to Grow up!
Try to be modest in Her Eyes,
Not a disgust in Her Insights! — Qalandar Nawaz

We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today. — Maajid Nawaz

I'm yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn't homophobic, that isn't bigoted to the out group. — Maajid Nawaz

My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu. — Maajid Nawaz

Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my - it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I've called it the re-humanisation process. — Maajid Nawaz

Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism. — Maajid Nawaz

For my own part, once I became a teenager, I experienced severe and violent racism. — Maajid Nawaz

Being veterans of the struggle to push back against fundamentalist Christians, American liberals are well acquainted with the pitfalls of the neoconservative flirtation with the religious-right. — Maajid Nawaz

I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty's 'soft' approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge. — Maajid Nawaz

All my friends were non-Muslims. I actually knew very little about Islam - like, very little. — Maajid Nawaz

As I went between the Islamic Society in my college and university, the mosque, the halal takeaway, and visited the homes of my male Muslim friends, it was entirely possible for me to get through my day without interacting in any meaningful way with a single non-Muslim. — Maajid Nawaz

Academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them. — Maajid Nawaz

Chance explorations on search engines do not 'accidentally' lead users to extremist websites. — Maajid Nawaz

If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech. — Maajid Nawaz

This book is the account of his redemptive journey - through innocence, bigotry, hard-line radicalism, and beyond - to a passionate advocacy of human rights and all that this can mean. — Maajid Nawaz

If we are true small 'l' liberals, it's our job to seek out feminist Muslims, ex-Muslims, liberal Muslims, dissenting voices within Muslim communities, gay Muslims - we should promote those voices and in doing so, we demonstrate Islam is not a monolith, Muslims are not homogenous, and that Muslims are truly internally diverse. — Maajid Nawaz

Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism. — Maajid Nawaz

Quilliam will remain a priority for me because its values shape my beliefs and outlook. — Maajid Nawaz

I joined a radical group at the age of 16 because I'm a passionate man; the good news is that I turned myself around since then. But my character is still quite free and passionate. — Maajid Nawaz

Islamism demanded no less of a root-and-branch overhaul of society. But because it was cloaked in religious garb, no one quite knew what to do with it, and people were desperate not to offend. There was confusion over whether to define our activism as a cultural identity, an ideology or a faith. To top it off, Islamism went through a decade of being embraced by both the left and right wings. The default left-leaning liberal position was to embrace the movement as part of multicultural sensitivity: to tell people to stop practising their faith was imperialism in nineties clothing, a colonial hangover bordering on racism. Instead, we were embraced as a new generation of anti-colonial politicised youth. Curiously, the default position on the right was to embrace us too, because it had been the Afghan Mujahideen, backed by the CIA, who fought the Soviet Union. Lest we forget, this was when Hollywood films such as Stallone's Rambo 3 portrayed the Afghan Mujahideen as heroes. — Maajid Nawaz

I am a Muslim. I am born to Muslim parents. I have a Muslim son. I have been imprisoned and witnessed torture for my previous understanding of my religion. — Maajid Nawaz

The British state already invests in early intervention campaigns in drug abuse and sexual health. Challenging extremism should be no less of a priority. — Maajid Nawaz

when i baffled with death at my door!
the wounded hands of mine!
were punching the keys for someone to love.!
death was merciful on my work.
no wonder, even death gave me a life to ease your sufferings everyday.
now i know why i die everyday to get back to life again to make you live — Qalandar Nawaz

The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides. — Maajid Nawaz

Rather than allowing jihadists to shut down debate, it must proliferate so much that they simply cannot kill us all. — Maajid Nawaz

Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence. — Maajid Nawaz

Islam will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it. — Maajid Nawaz

I have founded Khudi, in Pakistan, a youth movement which tries to counter extremist ideology through healthy discussion and debate. — Maajid Nawaz

Let me make this clear: it is our duty to adopt a policy barring the wearing of niqabs in these public buildings. — Maajid Nawaz

What we cannot deny is that there's an association between exclusion, segregation, non-violent extremist thinking, and jihadism. — Maajid Nawaz

Never change yourself for the sake of someone , because at the day end no one owns your sacrifices and sufferings. — Tayyab Nawaz Sulehri

There were people who had sampled my voice from speeches when I was an Islamist and made them the chorus of pro-Islamist rap songs who then began talking about me as an apostate. — Maajid Nawaz

Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn't the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them. — Maajid Nawaz

For years, Islamists and other extremists have taken advantage of grievances of Muslims in Britain and have successfully identified ways to integrate them under one 'Islamic' banner. — Maajid Nawaz

Liberalism will beat totalitarianism by killing it softly, not by mimicking it. — Maajid Nawaz

I had been born into a sort of democracy in which for ten years Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif kept replacing each other, none of their governments ever completing a term and always accusing each other of corruption. — Malala Yousafzai

A fatwa is a religious edict. Such edicts bind only those who seek to follow the Imam issuing them but can be regarded as an option for others seeking an alternative view. — Maajid Nawaz

I think I would encourage leaders to start working with communities in order to inoculate angry, young teenagers. — Maajid Nawaz

My feminism, as intended by me, extends to empowering women to make legal choices, not to judge the legal choices they make. My fight is for rights. — Maajid Nawaz

I was in prison with the assassins of the former president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, who was killed in 1981. Those who weren't executed in that case were given life sentences, and two of those were with me in prison. — Maajid Nawaz

In current times, our moral uproar is best reserved for those who aspire to stone men or women to death, not those who consensually watch women - or men, for that matter - dance. — Maajid Nawaz

The truth is that just as the 'West' is not a homogenous entity with one view on foreign and domestic policy, nor are Muslims. — Maajid Nawaz

I was, by the way - I'm an Essex lad, born and raised in Essex in the U.K. — Maajid Nawaz

One of the problems we're facing is, in my view, that there are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. — Maajid Nawaz

In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr.Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don't think I can bear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again:
La illaha ila Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.
They had to transfuse several units of red cells-
How will I tell Soraya?
Twice, they had to revive him-
I will do namaz, I will do zakat.
They would have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong-
I will fast.
He is alive. — Khaled Hosseini

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

In an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity. — Maajid Nawaz

One does not need to be brown to discuss racism, one does not need to be Muslim to discuss Islam. Ideas have no color, or country. Good ideas are truly universal. Any attempt to police ideas, to quarantine thought based on race or religion, and to pre-define what is and what isn't a legitimate conversation, must be resisted by all. — Maajid Nawaz

The positive is I'm delighted at the way the Liberal Democrats as a party have supported me and the way in which the work I'm doing, through the Liberal Democrats, has abled to broaden some of the work I work on. — Maajid Nawaz

There are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. There is no equivalent of Al-Qaeda without the terrorism. — Maajid Nawaz

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for. — Maajid Nawaz

Language that is designed to dehumanize has consequences. — Maajid Nawaz

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable ... I advice keep singing peacefully GO NAWAZ GO — Abdul'Rauf Hashmi

If liberalism is to mean anything at all, it is duty bound to support without hesitation the dissenting individual over the group, the heretic over the orthodox, innovation over stagnation, and free speech over offense. — Maajid Nawaz

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization. — Maajid Nawaz

if you say!
"A woman is A problem"
Gentleman,
"Probably you have never seen her sweeter part — Qalandar Nawaz

In the United Kingdom, we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds. — Maajid Nawaz

I am everything I am today, because of my past. — Maajid Nawaz

Unlike the student protests in the 1960s, by using religion and multiculturalism as a cover, we brought an entirely foreign lexicon to the table. We knowingly presented political demands disguised as religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labelled any objection to our demands as racism and bigotry. Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathisers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who were now in middle-career management posts; people like Dave Gomer. It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicised religion as ideological agitation, and felt racist if they tried to stop us. — Maajid Nawaz

We disguised our political demands behind religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labeled any objection to our demands as racism. Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathizers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who like Dave Gomer were now in middle-career management posts. It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicized religion as ideological agitation; they felt racist if they tried to stop us. — Maajid Nawaz

I was imprisoned in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Egypt's state security was rounding people up in unprecedented numbers. — Maajid Nawaz

To suggest that a Muslim cannot think for himself sounds to me very much like an incident of anti-Muslim bigotry. — Maajid Nawaz

Wherever I've been, I've left people who joined Hizb ut-Tahrir. I have to make amends. What I did was damaging to British society and the world at large. — Maajid Nawaz

I can say with a level of confidence that Islam is not a religion of war, only because the majority of Muslims don't subscribe to that perspective, not because there's something inherent in the text that tells me it's a religion of peace. — Maajid Nawaz

I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they've joined. — Maajid Nawaz

The University of Westminster is well known for being a hotbed of extremist activity. — Maajid Nawaz

Never change yourself for someone, because at the day end no one own your sacrifices. — Tayyab Nawaz Sulehri

The British and French governments have taken a strong stance against 'extremist content' online when addressing their approach to tackling extremism. — Maajid Nawaz

There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do. — Maajid Nawaz

When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote. — Maajid Nawaz

The best revolutions are unplanned, and the most democratic are leaderless. — Maajid Nawaz

No form of theocracy, whether it's manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry. — Maajid Nawaz

The message was wrong, I knew that now, but maybe the tactics were right. Perhaps we could use the methods of the Islamist groups to create a counter-Islamist movement, to do da'wah for the democratic culture? — Maajid Nawaz

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me. — Maajid Nawaz

Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. — Maajid Nawaz

The authorities should have taken a different approach. Imagine if it had been the far-right British National Party (BNP) growing on campus. Suppose that it was racism, instead of Islamism, spreading throughout the student population and the BNP had decided to stand in Student Union elections. If that had happened, and the BNP had taken over, the college would have acted immediately. They certainly would have seen the need for a solution, if only for their own reputation and the impact on admissions. They would have cited the college constitution about how hate speech was not allowed, how the BNP was an external political group attempting to hijack the college, and probably stopped them. But because of the religious element in our message, and the desire of the authorities not to offend our religious sensitivities, we were left alone. — Maajid Nawaz

By the age of 24, I found myself convicted in prison in Egypt, being blacklisted from three countries in the world for attempting to overthrow their governments, being subjected to torture in Egyptian jails, and sentenced to five years as a prisoner of conscience. — Maajid Nawaz

The cheeky ideal I am calling for is that Muslims should be viewed as equal citizens, nothing more and nothing less. — Maajid Nawaz

In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism. — Maajid Nawaz

Dogma not only blinds its protagonist, but it muzzles all other opposition. — Maajid Nawaz

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend? — Maajid Nawaz

Increased sympathy for an Islamist cause, lack of integration, and the absence of acceptance of Muslims into British society makes it harder for Muslims to challenge Islamism and tough for non-Muslims to understand it. — Maajid Nawaz

Smoke Breaks are better than heart Breaks — Qalandar Nawaz

Broader social concerns within Muslim communities, such as discrimination, integration or socio-economic disadvantages, should be treated distinctively and not as part of counterterrorism agenda, which has been counter-productive. — Maajid Nawaz

Our coerced silence is the weapon that has been sharpened and brought to our throats.
This is why Nawaz Sharif's statement in defence of Ahmadis met with such an angry response. Because the heart of the issue isn't whether Ahmadis are non-Muslims or not. The heart of the issue is whether Muslims can be silenced by fear.
Because if we can be silenced when it comes to Ahmadis, then we can be silenced when it comes to Shias, we can be silenced when it comes to women, we can be silenced when it comes to dress, we can be silenced when it comes to entertainment, and we can even be silenced when it comes to sitting by ourselves, alone in a room, afraid to think what we think.
That is the point. — Mohsin Hamid

The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a wider threat to the stability of the Middle East and the West than many realise. — Maajid Nawaz

Like so many nice people who seek power, I wanted to force everyone else to be nice. It's called totalitarianism. — Maajid Nawaz

The first point of contact for radicalisation is almost always a personal one. Prisons and universities, for example, tend to be easily and regularly infiltrated by radical groups, who use them as forums to propagate their ideas. — Maajid Nawaz

As he continued to talk to me, I realized one of the fundamental points about Islamism that so many people fail to understand. The way Osman was speaking wasn't in the orthodox, religious way of the imam with a stick; he was talking about politics, about events that were happening now. That's crucial to understanding what Islamism is all about: it isn't a religious movement with political consequences, it is a political movement with religious consequences. — Maajid Nawaz

I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college. — Maajid Nawaz