Islam and violence
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Quotes about Islam and violence.
Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including corporal and capital punishment, as well as how, when and against whom to wage war.
Quotes[edit]
- At a time when Muslim communities are being exhorted to do more to tackle violence by a handful of extremists who purport to be Muslims, it is vitally important that our government and police are equally pro-active in seeking to tackle extremist violence against British Muslims and the Islamophobic climate that gives rise to it.
- What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim – mostly violence against fellow Muslims – who don’t subscribe to its sick worldview. But you don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation. Ideas – like those of the despicable far right – which privilege one identity to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of others. And ideas also based on conspiracy: that Jews exercise malevolent power; or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam. In this warped worldview, such conclusions are reached – that 9/11 was actually inspired by Mossad to provoke the invasion of Afghanistan; that British security services knew about 7/7, but didn’t do anything about it because they wanted to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash. And like so many ideologies that have existed before – whether fascist or communist – many people, especially young people, are being drawn to it. We need to understand why it is proving so attractive.
- David Cameron, speech on extremism at Ninestiles School, Birmingham. (transcript by The Independent)
- Although it would be a mistake to think that Islam is inherently a violent religion, it would be equally inappropriate to fail to understand the conditions under which believers might feel justified in acting violently against those whom their tradition feels should be opposed.
- Ralph W. Hood; Peter C. Hill; Bernard Spilka (2009). The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. Guilford Press. p. 257.
- "Religion of peace" does not imply that Islam is a pacifist religion, that it rejects the use of violence altogether, as either a moral or a metaphysical evil. "Religion of peace" connotes, rather, that Islam can countenance a state of permanent, peaceful coexistence with other nations and peoples who are not Muslims...This position, I shall argue, is no more than the result of an objective application of principles of Islamic jurisprudence which no jurist or activist, medieval or modern, has claimed to reject.
- Sherman Jackson (2002), Jihad and the Modern World, Journal of Islamic Law and Culture.
- Like all religions, Islam occasionally allows for force while stressing that the main spiritual goal is one of nonviolence and peace.
- Mark Juergensmeyer (2003). Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence. University of California Press. p. 80. ISBN 9780520240117.
- Ich habe selbst erlebt, dass körperliche und seelische Gewalt in einer muslimischen Familie als normal angesehen wird. Leider gehört Gewalt im Islam zum Kulturgut.
- I have experienced myself that physical and psychological violence is seen as normal in Muslim families. Unfortunately violence belongs to the culture in Islam.
- Sibel Kekilli, "Eklat um Sibel Kekilli in Berlin" (In German) - Der Tagesspiegel, December 4, 2006
- The Quranic exposition on resisting aggression, oppression and injustice lays down the parameters within which fighting or the use of violence is legitimate. What this means is that one can use the Quran as the criterion for when violence is legitimate and when it is not.
- Chandra Muzaffar (2002). Rights, religion and reform: enhancing human dignity through spiritual and moral transformation. Taylor & Francis. p. 345.
- Islam does not condone violence but, like other religions, does believe in self-defence.
- Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts.
- Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, quoted in "Cleric issues anti-terror fatwa", Al Jazeera, 2 May 2010.
- The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force.
- Wafa Sultan, cited in: N. C. Munson, Noel Carroll. If You Can Keep It, Allen-Ayers Books, 2010, p. 215
- Mohammedans talk of universal brotherhood, but what comes out of that in reality? Why, anybody who is not a Mohammedan will not be admitted into the brotherhood: he will more likely have his throat cut.
- Swami Vivekananda. Complete Works (2.380)
Attributed[edit]
- Verily, this Quran does not reveal its secrets save to those who rush into battles with the Quran at their side.
- Attributed to Sayyid Qutb by Brynjar Lia in Doctrines for Jihadi Terrorist Training, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Kjeller, Norway, 2008, p.13
- The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.
- Attributed to Muhammad, as quoted by John Galt in The Wandering Jew (1820), p. 262
- Also in Philip Schaff, in History of the Christian Church - Volume 4 (1886), C. Scribner's, p. 171