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

Categorized in : Jobs Voice Gay

No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion [Islam] is not Islamophobia.

Maajid Nawaz

scrutinize islam ideas

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

majority movement culture

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

Maajid Nawaz

freedom-of-speech doe giving

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

Maajid Nawaz

soul challenges past

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

Maajid Nawaz

ancient islam desire

Once you subscribe to an ideological dogma as a solution to certain grievances, it then frames your mindset.

Maajid Nawaz

dogma certain mindset

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

violent christian challenges

I'm a progressive. What I find is that a subsection within the left that instead of standing for consistency in progressive values, so feminism as applied to mainstream society, as well as within minority communities, gay rights to mainstream society as well as within minority communities.

Maajid Nawaz

mainstream-society gay rights

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

stopping trying believe

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

teenage black-and-white years

I am everything I am today, because of my past.

Maajid Nawaz

my-past today past

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

Maajid Nawaz

genocide consciousness awakening

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

Maajid Nawaz

unattractive communism today

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

Maajid Nawaz

debate opportunity people

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

community religious remember

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

Maajid Nawaz

utilizing globalization benefits

I’m a Muslim, we come from a Muslim community and we are very critical of western or American foreign policy. So if I’ve got the right and if other Muslims have got the right to criticize… likewise everyone else has also got the right to criticize everything else.

Maajid Nawaz

foreign-policy criticize community

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

Maajid Nawaz

antidote kingdoms found

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

amnesty-international opening-up heart

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

Maajid Nawaz

theocracy groups form