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No god but God

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it is solely through the slow and steady building of personal relationships that one discovers the fundamental truth that all people everywhere have the same dreams and aspirations, that all people struggle with the same fears and anxieties. — location: 128 ^ref-45418

Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith. — location: 245 ^ref-3918

faith, which is mysterious and ineffable and which eschews all categorizations, — location: 250 ^ref-11178

The only question that matters with regard to a religion and its mythology is “What do these stories mean?” — location: 262 ^ref-33334

first Council at Nicaea in 325 C.E.—which declared Jesus to be “fully God”—and the Council at Chalcedon in 451 C.E.—which entrenched the doctrine of the Trinity into Christian theology— — location: 508 ^ref-1357

concept of the Trinity is not explicitly mentioned in the New Testament — location: 511 ^ref-35325

Monophysites, meaning they rejected the Nicene doctrine confirming Jesus’ dual nature. — location: 522 ^ref-25950

indicate that the Quranic vision of the Last Days may have been revealed to the pagan Arabs through a set of symbols and metaphors with which they were already familiar, thanks in some part to the wide spread of Christianity in the region. — location: 534 ^ref-33219

Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism intermingled in one of the last remaining regions in the Near East still dominated by paganism, — location: 554 ^ref-42336

Not only does the Quran admit that God found Muhammad “erring” and gave him guidance (93:7), but the ancient traditions clearly show Muhammad deeply involved in the religious customs of Mecca: circumambulating the Ka‘ba, making sacrifices, and going on pagan devotional retreats called tahannuth. — location: 613 ^ref-64158

erroneous assumption that religions are born in some sort of cultural vacuum; they most certainly are not. — location: 619 ^ref-18722

Prophets are, above all, reformers who redefine and reinterpret the existing beliefs and practices of their communities, providing fresh sets of symbols and metaphors with which succeeding generations can describe the nature of reality. — location: 621 ^ref-24741

the Abyssinian attack on Mecca; modern scholarship has determined that momentous event to have taken place around 552 C.E. — location: 641 ^ref-17291

For better or worse, the closest our modern historical methods can come to determining the date of Muhammad’s birth is sometime in the last half of the sixth century C.E. — location: 647 ^ref-15895

There was no reason either to travel to Mecca or, for that matter, to settle there. No reason, that is, but the Ka‘ba. — location: 781 ^ref-43654

The Camel and the Wheel — location: 801 ^ref-9300

Especially for those with no formal protection—such as orphans and widows, neither of whom had access to any kind of inheritance—the only option was to borrow money from the rich at exorbitant interest rates, which inevitably led to debt, which in turn led to crushing poverty and, ultimately, to slavery. — location: 868 ^ref-33432

success as a skillful merchant who knew how to strike a lucrative deal. — location: 876 ^ref-3130

when he asked for the hand of his uncle’s daughter, Umm Hani, she rejected him outright for a more prosperous suitor. — location: 882 ^ref-55130

wealthy and respected female merchant in a society that treated women as chattel and prohibited them from inheriting the property of their husbands, Khadija had somehow managed to become one of the most respected members of Meccan society. — location: 884 ^ref-34245

On the other hand, he seemed to be acutely aware of his complicity in Mecca’s religio-economic system, which exploited the city’s unprotected masses in order to maintain the wealth and power of the élite. For fifteen years he struggled with the incongruity between his lifestyle and his beliefs; by his fortieth year, he was an intensely troubled man. — location: 898 ^ref-29359

As numerous scholars and Arab linguists have demonstrated, an-nabi al-ummi should more properly be understood as “the Prophet for the unlettered” — location: 930 ^ref-8412

a man only reaches the peak of his physical and intellectual powers when he becomes forty years old.” The Quran confirms this belief by equating manhood with the realization of the fortieth year of life (46:15). — location: 939 ^ref-65290

Aisha, who would become the Prophet’s closest and most beloved companion, claimed that the first signs of prophethood occurred long before the experience at Mt. Hira. These signs came in the form of visions that assailed Muhammad in his dreams, and which were so disturbing that they made him increasingly seek solitude. “He liked nothing better than to be alone,” Aisha recalled. — location: 947 ^ref-33362

What seems certain, however, is that Muhammad, like all the prophets before him, wanted nothing to do with God’s calling. — location: 960 ^ref-34220

when he needed assurance the most, God turned mute. — location: 990 ^ref-62368

Finally, when Muhammad was at his lowest, a second verse was sent down from heaven — location: 992 ^ref-34573

Noticeably absent in these early verses about the power and goodness of God is either an authoritative declaration of monotheism or a definitive critique of polytheism. — location: 1005 ^ref-57419

what kind of god Allah was, not how many gods there were. — location: 1006 ^ref-27728

the second theme informing the bulk of Muhammad’s earliest recitations—dealt almost exclusively with the demise of the tribal ethic in Mecca. — location: 1010 ^ref-37675

Muhammad was not yet establishing a new religion; he was calling for sweeping social reform. He was not yet preaching monotheism; he was demanding economic justice. And for this revolutionary and profoundly innovative message, he was more or less ignored. — location: 1025 ^ref-47811

during those early years is that its followers consisted primarily of what Montgomery Watt has called “the most influential families in the most influential clans.” — location: 1044 ^ref-20579

young men, the majority under thirty years old, who felt the same discontent with Meccan society as Muhammad did. — location: 1045 ^ref-53699

It is difficult to believe they would have been shocked by Muhammad’s monotheistic claims. — location: 1067 ^ref-59465

this self-image that so greatly disturbed the Quraysh. — location: 1078 ^ref-47187

not: the only way to bring about radical social and economic reform in Mecca was to overturn the religio-economic system on which the city was built; and the only way to do that was to attack the very source of the Quraysh’s wealth and prestige—the Ka‘ba. — location: 1084 ^ref-55403

This statement was a conscious and deliberate attack on both the Ka‘ba and the sacred right of the Quraysh to manage — location: 1087 ^ref-19262

the God of the heavens and the earth required no intermediaries whatsoever, but could be accessed by anyone. Thus, the idols in the sanctuary, and indeed the sanctuary itself, insofar as it served as a repository for the gods, were utterly useless. And if the Ka‘ba was useless, then there was no more reason for Mecca’s supremacy as either the religious or the economic center of Arabia. — location: 1090 ^ref-32761

they were absolutely earnest in their conviction that Muhammad was dividing the families of Mecca. — location: 1107 ^ref-10193

the Quraysh seemed more disturbed with Muhammad’s insistent derision of the rituals and traditional values of their forefathers, traditions upon which the social, religious, and economic foundation of the city rested, than they were by his message of monotheism. — location: 1114 ^ref-31701

It is a wonder—some would say a miracle—that this same man, who had been forced to sneak out of his home under cover of night to join the seventy or so followers anxiously awaiting him in a foreign land hundreds of miles away, would, in a few short years, return to the city of his birth, not covertly or in darkness, but in the full light of day, with ten thousand men trailing peacefully behind him; and the same people who once tried to murder him in his sleep would instead offer up to him both the sacred city and the keys to the Ka‘ba—unconditionally and without a fight, like a consecrated sacrifice. — location: 1163 ^ref-51207

The document—often celebrated as the world’s first written constitution — location: 1260 ^ref-57838

one can refer to Muhammad’s community in Yathrib as the Ummah, but only insofar as that term is understood to designate what the Orientalist explorer Bertram Thomas has called a “super-tribe,” or what the historian Marshall Hodgson more accurately describes as a “neo-tribe”: that is, a radically new kind of social organization, but one that was nonetheless based on the traditional Arab tribal paradigm. — location: 1318 ^ref-9210

charged no tax on transactions and no interest on loans. — location: 1339 ^ref-15816

“not in turning your face East or West in prayer … but in distributing your wealth out of love for God to your needy kin; to the orphans, to the vagrants, and to the mendicants; it lies in freeing the slaves, in observing your devotions, and in giving alms to the poor” — location: 1345 ^ref-46944

his betrothal to Aisha was just that: a betrothal. — location: 1423 ^ref-5460

The most shocking aspect of Muhammad’s marriages is not his ten years of polygamy in Yathrib, but his twenty-five years of monogamy in Mecca, — location: 1424 ^ref-4797

for fourteen centuries, the science of Quranic commentary has been the exclusive domain of Muslim men. — location: 1506 ^ref-10006

He instituted segregated prayers — location: 1535 ^ref-26535

the religious message of the Quran—a message of revolutionary social egalitarianism—must be separated from the cultural prejudices of seventh-century Arabia. — location: 1544 ^ref-36659

the traditional image of the veiled Muslim woman as the sheltered and docile sexual property of her husband is just as misleading and simpleminded as the postmodernist image of the veil as the emblem of female freedom and empowerment from Western cultural hegemony. — location: 1585 ^ref-11723

women prayed and fought alongside men; — location: 1596 ^ref-45130

the more his men urge him to go out and meet the enemy, the more he wavers. — location: 1629 ^ref-19844

Throughout every one of these regions, but especially in the Near East, where religion explicitly sanctioned the state, territorial expansion was identical to religious proselytization. Thus, every religion was a “religion of the sword.” — location: 1694 ^ref-19100

War, according to the Quran, is either just or unjust; it is never “holy.” — location: 1708 ^ref-55548

jihad should best be understood as a primitive “just war theory”: — location: 1709 ^ref-13206

The raiding party would quickly descend on a caravan—usually at its rear—and carry off whatever they could get their hands on before being discovered. — location: 1733 ^ref-62508

At the heart of the doctrine of jihad was the heretofore unrecognized distinction between combatant and noncombatant. — location: 1759 ^ref-52501

Ibn Taymiyya argued that the idea of killing nonbelievers who refused to convert to Islam—the foundation of the classical doctrine of jihad—not only defied the example of Muhammad but also violated one of the most important principles in the Quran: that “there can be no compulsion in religion” (2:256). — location: 1780 ^ref-39094

What has for centuries been defined as a collective duty that can be waged solely in defense of life, faith, and property has, in Jihadism, been transformed into a radically individualistic obligation, totally divorced from any institutional power. — location: 1808 ^ref-50113

if there was no one to stand up to despots and tyrants, then, as the Quran states, our “monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques—places where the name of God is honored—would all be razed to the ground” — location: 1820 ^ref-37279

Muhammad’s doctrine of jihad than as an ancient Arabian “just war” theory. — location: 1825 ^ref-50489

The Banu Nadir left Medina for Khaybar, taking their wealth and property with them. — location: 1879 ^ref-36752

Only under the leadership of Umar near the end of the seventh century C.E. were the remaining Jewish clans in Medina expelled— — location: 1934 ^ref-26833

(Pagans and polytheists, however, were often given a choice between conversion and death.) — location: 1943 ^ref-48906

Umar ordered the demolition of a mosque in Damascus that had been illegally constructed by forcibly expropriating the house of a Jew, he was merely following the Prophet’s warning that “he who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have me as his accuser on the Day of Judgment.” — location: 1945 ^ref-7233

medieval Spain—the supreme example of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cooperation— — location: 1949 ^ref-55206

Jewish documents written during this period refer to Islam as “an act of God’s mercy.” — location: 1952 ^ref-31937

This may explain why Christianity gradually disappeared in most of the Islamic lands, while Jewish communities increased and prospered. — location: 1956 ^ref-1312

the Jewish clans of Medina were in no way a religiously observant group; they may not even have been Jews, if Margoliouth and others are correct. — location: 1996 ^ref-49726

“all those who believe—the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians—anyone who believes in God and the Last Days, and who does good deeds, — location: 2042 ^ref-63860

He purposely set the day of Muslim congregation at noon on Friday so that it would coincide with, but not disrupt, Jewish preparations for the Sabbath. — location: 2049 ^ref-24058

encouraged his followers to marry Jews, as he himself did (5:5–7). — location: 2051 ^ref-47250

Despite the changes, Muhammad continued to encourage his followers to fast on Yom Kippur, and he never ceased to venerate Jerusalem as a holy city; — location: 2054 ^ref-22067

until the day he died, Muhammad continued to engage in peaceful discourse—not theological debate—with the Jewish communities of Arabia, just as the Quran had commanded him to do: “Do not argue with the People of the Book—apart from those individuals who act unjustly toward you—unless it is in a fair way — location: 2057 ^ref-1395

throughout the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims regularly read the Torah alongside the Quran. — location: 2060 ^ref-16402

this verse, and the many others like it in the Quran, is in no way a condemnation of Christianity per se but of Imperial Byzantine (Trinitarian) Orthodoxy, — location: 2069 ^ref-50133

just as they reversed many of Muhammad’s social reforms aimed at empowering women, the Muslim scriptural and legal scholars of the following centuries rejected the notion that Jews and Christians were part of the Ummah, and instead designated both groups as unbelievers. — location: 2099 ^ref-63399

Only six men and four women were put to death for various crimes, and no one was forced to convert to Islam, — location: 2147 ^ref-5695

except for the one of Jesus and his mother, Mary. This image the Prophet put his hands over reverently, saying, “Wash out all except what is beneath my hands.” — location: 2154 ^ref-44307

nowhere else had such an experiment in popular sovereignty even been imagined, let alone attempted. — location: 2354 ^ref-4363

She never spoke to Abu Bakr again, and when she died a short time later, Ali quietly buried her at night without bothering to inform the Caliph. — location: 2384 ^ref-60204

Only Ali remained adamant that regardless of Aisha’s guilt or innocence, the scandal was damaging enough to Muhammad’s reputation to merit divorce. — location: 2409 ^ref-54555

prophethood and the Caliphate should not reside in the same clan. — location: 2444 ^ref-18697

lest the distinction between religious and political authority in the Ummah become confounded, — location: 2569 ^ref-26570

committed to maintaining the secular character of the Caliphate. — location: 2583 ^ref-31772

Shi‘atu Ali, who were committed to preserving Muhammad’s original vision of the Ummah, no matter the social or political consequences. — location: 2593 ^ref-1903

that. It was the Turks who, infiltrating the various sultanates as hired militia, managed many years later to reunite most of the Muslim lands under the single Caliphate of the Ottomans: — location: 2692 ^ref-39165

over the past fourteen centuries, Islam as we know it has been almost exclusively defined by an extremely small, rigid, and often profoundly traditionalist group of men who, for better or worse, consider themselves to be the unyielding pillars upon which the religious, social, and political foundations of the religion rest. — location: 2722 ^ref-32232

al-Mutawakkil swung the theological pendulum to the side of the Traditionalists by richly rewarding their Ulama and persecuting the very same Rationalists who had up until his reign enjoyed the favors of the court. By the reign of the Caliph al-Qadir (d. 1031), the vast majority of the Traditionalist Ulama, especially the influential Hanbalites, were united under a single doctrine. — location: 2787 ^ref-19756

the community as the nucleus of the Muslim faith. — location: 2826 ^ref-4403

community is the Church in Islam: — location: 2827 ^ref-52306

the only major Muslim ritual in which men and women participate with no division between them. — location: 2894 ^ref-26148

“I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together.” — location: 2897 ^ref-11885

Mysterium Tremendum, — location: 2916 ^ref-61204

shirk can also be defined as placing obstacles in the way of God, whether greed, or drink, or pride, or false piety, or any other grave sin that keeps the believer apart from God. — location: 2926 ^ref-49398

“truthfulness” of God’s word cannot be based solely on God’s Revelation, for that would be circular reasoning. — location: 2957 ^ref-65178

as they were defined by the Traditionalist Ulama— — location: 2969 ^ref-60177

God’s attributes—God’s knowledge, speech, etc.—to be nothing more than “guideposts” that merely reflected the human mind’s understanding of the Divine, not the Divine itself. — location: 2986 ^ref-14662

medium through which miracle was primarily experienced was neither magic nor medicine, but language. — location: 3011 ^ref-52120

Rationalists were branded as heretics, and their theories gradually lost influence in all the major schools of law and theology with the exception of the Shi‘ite schools — location: 3056 ^ref-39394

This view of the Quran as static and unchanging became increasingly problematic as the Revelation gradually transformed from merely the principle of moral guidance in the Muslim community to the primary source of Islam’s Sacred Law: the Shariah. — location: 3111 ^ref-32107

the Sunna is a far better reflection of the opinions of the ninth-century Ulama than of the seventh-century Ummah. — location: 3151 ^ref-2357

the Ulama gradually became less concerned with developing innovative solutions to contemporary legal problems and more occupied with what in Islam is referred to derisively as taqlid—the blind acceptance of juridical precedent. — location: 3165 ^ref-48264

religious truth, as long as it did not explicitly contradict the Revelation, could be discovered through human reason. — location: 3172 ^ref-18727

formed their traditions, especially ijma, — location: 3203 ^ref-10381

So it is simply unreasonable to consider what is so obviously the result of human labor, and so plainly subject to changing human biases, to be the infallible, unalterable, inflexible, and binding sacred law of God. — location: 3208 ^ref-27031

God was rearing the Ummah like a loving parent, instructing it in stages and making alterations when necessary, from the first Revelation in 610 to the last in 632. — location: 3231 ^ref-37111

intolerably heretical belief that a constantly changing and obviously man-made legal tradition built upon the wildly conflicting interpretations of half a dozen competing schools of law, each of which relies on drastically different textual and historical sources, should be treated as sacred and divine. Such a belief is, in a word, shirk. — location: 3254 ^ref-23030

not since the Prophet Muhammad attempted to build a new kind of society in Medina has a more significant experiment in nation building been attempted. — location: 3274 ^ref-52907

Shi‘ah believe that because the Revelation emanates from sources beyond human comprehension, the whole of the Quran consists of symbols and allusions that only the Imam has the spiritual perfection to elucidate. — location: 3489 ^ref-15612

the responsibility of Muslim clerics in the modern world was to preserve the spiritual character of the Islamic state, not to run it directly. — location: 3657 ^ref-35338

though they were now close enough to touch, they knew that such wine could be tasted only in paradise. — location: 3767 ^ref-18044

If you cannot change the kings,” the Sufis argued, “then change yourself.” — location: 3814 ^ref-25828

when you “start by purifying your inner self, you end up being concerned with the outer and with society.” — location: 3821 ^ref-6037

Sufis believe that reason and theology, creed and ritual, law and its commandments, all must be replaced in the soul of the enlightened person with the supreme virtue: love. — location: 3841 ^ref-23943

Sufism is a religious movement that can only be described; it cannot be defined. — location: 3855 ^ref-58943

The linguist is the Sufi, who enlightens humanity to the fact that what it seeks (its religions), though called by different names, are in reality one identical thing. — location: 3867 ^ref-62456

Sufism is the secret, subtle reality concealed at the very depths of the Muslim faith, — location: 3883 ^ref-49077

such esoteric knowledge must be revealed slowly and in stages. — location: 3908 ^ref-51273

Sufi teaching can never be revealed to the unprepared or the spiritually immature. — location: 3912 ^ref-45001

“destroy the mountain of the Self” and “give up the intellect for love,” — location: 3945 ^ref-45826

although they have “struggled, wandered, traveled far,” it is “themselves they sought” and “themselves they are.” — location: 3950 ^ref-27347

of the Holy Spirit. In traditional Sufi doctrine, the ruh, or spirit of God, is locked in an eternal battle with the nafs, or the self, for possession of the heart—the qalb— — location: 3962 ^ref-11156

Sufis believe that true understanding of the nature of the universe and humanity’s place in it can be achieved only when reason has been abandoned for love. — location: 3995 ^ref-53800

Humanity, then, is God made manifest; it is God objectified through love. — location: 4002 ^ref-11135

Above all else, this is a love that must remain unfulfilled, as Majnun discovered in the palm orchard. — location: 4029 ^ref-56351

“Piety and moral goodness have naught to do with ecstasy; stain your prayer rug with wine!” — location: 4068 ^ref-57872

The Perfect Man is he for whom individuality is merely an external form, but whose inward reality conforms to the universe itself. — location: 4084 ^ref-38013

there are Sufis who practice dhikr through great feats of strength and stamina meant to separate them from the false reality of the material world. — location: 4126 ^ref-38806

“If the world does not agree with you, arise against it!” — location: 4159 ^ref-3018

in every region to which Europeans laid claim, the colonialist project was presented in the guise of a “civilizing mission.” — location: 4208 ^ref-40041

It took less than two years of carnage and plunder before full colonial control was restored. — location: 4242 ^ref-61096

Aligarh School, the primary goal of which was the revitalization of Islamic glory through modern European education. — location: 4271 ^ref-39867

modernization of the Shariah; — location: 4275 ^ref-45343

He argued that the Shariah could not be considered a civil code of law because the only legitimate law in Islam is the Quran, which “does not interfere in political questions, nor does it lay down specific rules of conduct.” — location: 4282 ^ref-48160

Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani — location: 4316 ^ref-49986

hypocrisy they showed in preaching such exalted Enlightenment values while cruelly stifling Indian appeals for liberation and national sovereignty. — location: 4328 ^ref-40578

Islam was for al-Afghani far more than law and theology; it was civilization. — location: 4333 ^ref-38187

your sympathy with us is that of the wolf for the lamb which he designs to eat. — location: 4365 ^ref-52645

Traditional Islamic ideals of egalitarianism and social justice — location: 4421 ^ref-30251

Islamic socialism proved to be infinitely more successful than either Pan-Islamism or Pan-Arabism in giving voice to Muslim grievances. — location: 4443 ^ref-1251

If Nasser had taught them anything, it was that such lofty ideals could be enacted only by force. — location: 4473 ^ref-11084

a nation committed to individual freedom, yet “devoid of human sympathy and responsibility … except under the force of law.” — location: 4478 ^ref-59027

kingdom founded upon an informal alliance between an insignificant tribal Shaykh and a barely literate religious zealot. — location: 4510 ^ref-55615

They sacked the treasury of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina and set fire to every book they could find, save the Quran. — location: 4560 ^ref-53975

In 1802, on the holy day of Ashura, they scaled the walls of Karbala and massacred two thousand Shi‘ite worshippers as they celebrated the rituals of Muharram. — location: 4565 ^ref-39997

After publicly executing forty thousand men and reimposing Wahhabism over the entire population, Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud renamed the Arabian Peninsula “the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” — location: 4576 ^ref-15039

Abd al-Aziz sent an army to al-Salba and massacred the Ikhwan. — location: 4617 ^ref-58926

Fundamentalism, in all religious traditions, is impervious to suppression. — location: 4618 ^ref-53371

Under Khomeini’s guidance, the constitution was a combination of third-world anti-imperialism mixed with the socioeconomic theories of legendary Iranian ideologues like Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali Shariati, the religio-political philosophies of Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, and traditional Shi‘ite populism. — location: 4706 ^ref-59693

“We no longer claim that a genuinely religious government can be democratic, but that it cannot be otherwise.” — location: 4737 ^ref-12531

the Islamic Republic, in its current iteration, is neither Islamic nor a republic. — location: 4757 ^ref-64073

Can Islam now be used to establish a genuinely liberal democracy in the Middle East and beyond? — location: 4768 ^ref-49858

the biggest obstacles in the path to creating a genuinely Islamic democracy are not only the Traditionalist Ulama or Jihadist terrorists, but, perhaps more destructively, those in the West who stubbornly refuse to recognize that democracy, if it is to be viable and enduring, can never be imported. — location: 4781 ^ref-36746

As the events of the Indian Revolt demonstrated, the British believed that the best way to curb nationalist sentiment was to classify the indigenous population not as Indians, but as Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, etc. — location: 4791 ^ref-2486

result of the decolonization process. — location: 4802 ^ref-51026

seventeen million people—the largest human migration in history— — location: 4814 ^ref-60973

Islam is not just a faith; Islam is an identity. — location: 4881 ^ref-24379

when it comes to religion the boundary between the public and private realm is far more fluid in Muslim-majority states than it is in the West. — location: 4891 ^ref-10411

the role these and so many other autocratic régimes in the Middle East have played in creating so-called fundamentalists in the first place, — location: 4908 ^ref-448

secularization is the process by which “certain responsibilities pass from ecclesiastical to political authorities,” whereas secularism is an ideology based on the eradication of religion from public life. — location: 4913 ^ref-59636

considered democracies, not because they are secular but because they are, at least in theory, dedicated to pluralism. — location: 4930 ^ref-30574

enormously successful examples of precisely such a reconciliation in Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Senegal, — location: 4939 ^ref-15518

one-third of the world’s Muslims already live in democratic states. — location: 4940 ^ref-30912

Grounding an Islamic democracy in the ideals of pluralism is vital because religious pluralism is the first step toward building an effective human rights policy in the Middle East. — location: 4961 ^ref-24748

consistent efforts by Muhammad’s religious and political inheritors to overturn those rights. — location: 4965 ^ref-50099

recall the Prophet’s warning to those who questioned his egalitarian measures in Medina—“[They] will be thrown into Hell, where they will dwell forever, suffering from the most shameful punishment” (4:14)—to recognize that acknowledging human rights in Islam is not simply a means of protecting civil liberties, it is a fundamental religious duty. — location: 4966 ^ref-43829

respect for human rights, like pluralism, is a process that develops naturally within a democracy. Bear in mind that for approximately two hundred of America’s two hundred forty years of existence, black American citizens were considered legally inferior to whites. — location: 4974 ^ref-19657

political secularization. — location: 4978 ^ref-64774

until the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, no Islamic polity in the history of the world had ever been ruled by one individual’s reading of scripture. — location: 4994 ^ref-15147

it is the language of religion that holds the most currency with the Muslim community. — location: 5007 ^ref-20013

when even legitimate religious opposition is discouraged or outlawed, the unfortunate result is that it becomes radicalized. — location: 5012 ^ref-4672

the real danger lies in stifling the political ambitions of such groups. — location: 5018 ^ref-36562

participation of Islamists who are willing to play by the rules, to put down their weapons, and to pick up ballots instead. — location: 5024 ^ref-49244

What is taking place now in Islam is an internal conflict between Muslims, not an external battle between Islam and the West. — location: 5035 ^ref-33791

This remarkable evolution in Christianity from its inception to its Reformation took fifteen vicious, bloody, and occasionally apocalyptic centuries. — location: 5043 ^ref-44306

the peaceful, tolerant, and forward-leaning Islam of an Amr Khaled and the violent, intolerant, and backward-looking Islam of an Osama bin Laden are two competing and contradictory sides of the same reformation phenomenon, because both are founded upon the argument that the power to speak for Islam no longer belongs solely to the Ulama. For better or worse, that power now belongs to every single Muslim in the world. — location: 5195 ^ref-22025

Indeed, for many young Muslims, the Internet is more than a means of communication and spiritual sustenance. It is the platform through which a new vision of the Ummah is being realized—a virtual Ummah, based not on creedal adherence or cultural affiliation, but on a shared sense of common interests, values, and concerns. — location: 5257 ^ref-20319

fact, bin Laden may have had more in common with mainstream Christian reformers like Martin Luther than many would like to admit. Luther may have advocated a similar anti-institutional reading of the scriptures and traditions of Christianity, but he also adamantly opposed any interpretation that challenged his. — location: 5270 ^ref-17063

Luther not only aligned himself with the secular magistrates but publicly called for the mass murder of the peasants, writing “Let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab [them], secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be so poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. — location: 5274 ^ref-37150

one hundred thousand peasants were massacred. — location: 5276 ^ref-50230