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.Collection: Medical
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.Collection: Legal
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.Collection: Sympathy
In today's Britain, the weakest among us are often assumed to be minority communities. In fact, the weakest are those minorities-within-minorities for whom the legal right to exit from their communities' constraints amounts to nothing before the enforcement of cultural and religious shaming.Collection: Legal
Hizb ut-Tahrir spearheaded the radicalization of the 1990s and cultivated an atmosphere of anger.Collection: Anger
Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Anger
In an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity.Collection: Society
No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion [Islam] is not Islamophobia.Collection: Ideas
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.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Majority
Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?Collection: Giving
Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.Collection: Islam
Once you subscribe to an ideological dogma as a solution to certain grievances, it then frames your mindset.Collection: Dogma
After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.Collection: Past
We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.Collection: Unattractive
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.Collection: Jobs
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.Collection: Believe
Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.Collection: Benefits
I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.Collection: Islam
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.Collection: Teenage
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.Collection: Gay
In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Religious
I am everything I am today, because of my past.Collection: Past
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.Collection: Heart
I'm yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn't homophobic, that isn't bigoted to the out group.Collection: Groups
If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.Collection: Egypt
The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.Collection: Awakening
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.Collection: Community
It's not always the case that Muslims have been theocrats.Collection: Cases
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.Collection: Men
Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism.Collection: Men
When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.Collection: Kingdoms