Reza aslan quotes

My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material.

Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men

The Revolutionary Guard controls almost everything in Iran, and this is hurting the people.

I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context... you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he lived.

No- one is ever told any story but their own.

There is absolutely no difference between religion and politics at all in Jesus' time. In other words, every seemingly religious word that came out of Jesus' mouth had very clear and unmistakable political connotations to it.

Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than they'd like to admit, in that all of them very much want to see a role of religion in society.

The New Testament is not a historical document.

Should I act violently in defense of my religion, absolutely.

Over the last few years, the Islamic world has produced more female presidents and prime ministers than both Europe and North America combined.

Well I wouldn't want to tell Obama specifically what to do, but obviously he's already promised publicly and privately, both before and after he was elected president, that he was going to open up communications with Iran.

It's politically impossible, as you know, for any member of Congress to make a public statement condemning or criticizing the policies of Israel. It would be political suicidal for them to do so. A lot of the members of Congress agree with me, some very high up in the Congress. But if they came out publically and said it, their seats would be in danger.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

The Israelis have not been willing to take the crucial step, and that is to withdraw from the Palestinian territory, the West Bank. And this is a crucial point and Israel has not only kept increasing the settlements in number, but have built highways among all the settlements from which the Palestinians are now excluded.

I think by all accounts in the same way we look back on the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiments of our history with shame and derision and with a healthy dose of mockery, that's how we will very likely look back on this sort of anti-Muslim sentiment as well in the next generation.

The people on the streets of Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and Syria and Iran have done more to defeat the ideology of Al Qaeda than anything that the United States has done. They have shown that there is a third way, that with peaceful protest you can have an end to dictatorship and a role for human dignity, a role for your religious faith in society.

Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency in Biblical Greek who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades who also happens to be Muslim.

Bill Maher is right to condemn religious practices that violate fundamental human rights. Religious communities must do more to counter extremist interpretations of their faith. But failing to recognize that religion is embedded in culture — and making a blanket judgment about the world’s second largest religion — is simply bigotry.

Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you're a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism, is going to be violent.

Islamophobia has become so mainstream in this country that Americans have been trained to expect violence against Muslims - not excuse it, but expect it. And that's happened because you have an Islamophobia industry in this country devoted to making Americans think there's an enemy within.

Obama has been the single worst president in modern American history in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I've taught the Bible all my life and I believe in the rights of Jews to have a place in the Holy Land, and so I have a natural affinity for that right. I believe that the right of Israel to have a place in the Holy Land can be honored by the two state solution, to abbreviate a long premise, and I think the only way to have peace is by following the basic road I've been following for the last 30 years, to try to bring peace to Israel through negotiation.

A cosmic war is like a ritual drama in which participants act out on Earth a battle they believe is actually taking place in the heavens.

It took many years to cleanse Arabia of its “false idols.” It will take many more to cleanse Islam of its new false idols-bigotry and fanaticism-worshipped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.

One-fifth of Americans, 20% believe that Barak Obama is, himself, a Muslim and in fact - amongst Republicans that number is almost 40%. Polls show in this country, that the more you disagree with Barak Obama's domestic policies, the more likely you are to think that he is a Muslim.

The first week or day that Obama was in office, he made it clear that peace in the Middle East would be a high priority for him. And his choice of a special envoy, George Mitchell, compared to the previous special envoys chosen, is remarkable.

Religion is never going to go away, and anyone who thinks it will doesn't understand what religion is. It is a language to describe the experience of human nature, so for as long as people struggle to describe what it means to be alive, it will be a ready-made language to express those feelings.

If you ask a Saudi Imam why women in Saudi Arabia can't drive, he'll say, 'Because Islam demands it.' But that's absurd, because - first of all - Islam demands no such thing; and secondly, the only country in the world in which women can't drive is Saudi Arabia. The inability to understand the difference between a cultural practice and religious belief is shocking among self-described intellectuals.

We have to remember that the United States has certain principles, certain values that bind us all together, that make us all American. And if we allow those values, those rights to be rescinded for one group of individuals, then we are essentially opening the door to having all of our rights, all of our privileges rescinded.

The best way to constrain Iran's potential movement towards nuclear capability is to have peace in the Middle East, peace between the Israeli and the Palestinians. To end the official war that still exists between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon.

It is no exaggeration to say that Syria holds the key for nearly all of Americas foreign policy goals in the Middle East. As Syria goes, so goes the region.

As with all journeys, the Way has an end, though it should not be imagined as a straight road leading to a fixed destination but rather as a majestic mountain whose peak conceals the presence of God. There are, of course, many paths to the summit-some better than others. But because every path eventually leads to the same destination, which path one takes is irrelevant.

I think that in many ways, some of those who did vote for Trump are sorry that they did so. But the hope, at least, is that we have a chance to make up for those kinds of mistakes.

For an academic to launch a public conversation about journalistic integrity, the role of religion in society, scholarship and faith is a dream come true. These are the kinds of things that we sit around talking to each other about in our dusty libraries. To see these conversations take place in popular culture is the best thing that could have ever happened.

But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.

I have not ever met Donald Trump, and I plan to go my entire life without ever actually having to breathe the same air that he breathes.

Islam is more than a religion, it's much more than a religion, it's a way of life, it is a one party political system that has a very elaborate legal system that can put you to death if you leave it.

There's this notion that Republicans are the party of Jesus and the Democrats are the Godless party. Let's be clear for a minute. One party wants to give health insurance to the poor and the weak and the dispossessed, and one party wants to take away that health insurance and give tax breaks to rich people. You tell me: which side would Jesus fall on that argument?

My advice for Obama concerning Iran is just to do what you already promised you would do, open up communications with Iran. Which is what I did after the Shah was deposed, as you know when the revolutionary government came in, I still had diplomatic relations with Iran, otherwise the hostages wouldn't have been there. We had about, as you know, 60 some diplomats in Iran, they had about the same number in Washington.

The idea that education will lead to a lessening of bigotry is just factually incorrect.

Trump is not presidential: this is not normal, it cannot be treated as normal. We have to fight with our last breath to make sure that the vision for the country that this racist white nationalist Bannon has cannot be achieved in this country. We are a country that, whether he likes it or not, is about to become the first nation in the world that is majority minorities.

But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you might know me better there.

Trump is a narcissistic sociopath; he's doing exactly what he said he would do.

The religiously observant is lumped in with the nominal Muslim, the nominal Muslim is lumped in with the non-Muslim and the radical. If we want to make sense of this mess and stop pushing Muslims into the arms of the extremist, we need to make meaningful distinctions between the religion of Islam that a billion Muslims follow and see as a guidance as a peaceful righteous moral life and the puritanical Islam of a minority which so captures the media's attention.

When you forcefully suppress religious nationalism, you radicalize it.

In the history of the prophetic biblical canon that starts with Genesis, the Koran is by far the most tolerant of the views of other religions.

When you're a brown Muslim from Iran talking about Jesus on TV, you need to keep your cool at all times, OK? That's not rocket science.

What's happened in the United States is something that has already happened in Europe and that is that Islam is become 'otherised', it has become a kind of receptacle into which fears and anxieties about the political or economic situation, about the changing racial landscape of this country are being thrown.

I really believe that to have a full impression of Jesus, both as Christ as a man, you must know about the world that gave shape to him - the world out of which he arose.

The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.

But perhaps the most important innovation in the doctrine of jihad was its outright prohibition of all but strictly defensive wars. “Fight in the way of God those who fight you,” the Quran says, “but do not begin hostilities; God does not like the aggressor” (2:190). Elsewhere the Quran is more explicit: “Permission to fight is given only to those who have been oppressed ... who have been driven from their homes for saying, 'God is our Lord' ” (22:39; emphasis added).

[Islam] is the dynamic conviction that a person's spiritual and worldly responsibilities are one and the same, that an individuals duty to the community is indistinguishable from his or her duty to God.

Anyone who says that Iran will commit suicide with its nuclear power is a moron and has no business in discussion.

Authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that they want to control.

Im a person of faith, and the language that I use to define my faith, the symbols and metaphors that I rely upon to express my faith, are those provided by Islam because they make the most sense to me.

I believe in God, which means I am open to some absurd possibilities. But I understand the power of that faith, and I understand the metaphor of that belief.

In times of economic distress, it's only natural for people - and Americans have done this for many years - to look for a scapegoat. Depending on where you live in this country, the scapegoats are either, frankly, Mexicans or Muslims. So, you know, God save you if you happened to be a Mexican Muslim in America right now.

Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.

Why? Why not? Why not you? Why not now?

When I was in the US, I felt that the discourse there surrounding Muslims as the other, problematising Muslims and Islam as the other was very similar to what we find in Australia, which is that the image of Islam is a constructed image in the West. We are starting from a point of view that Islam and Muslims - well Islam is a violent, misogynistic, hateful religion and that is where the debate always starts from - that presumption underlies the discourse.

For those who simply voted because Donald Trump was the Republican and you should vote for the Republican: it's baffling to me, how you can call yourself a Christian and support a man who embodies everything that Christ fought against.

The idea of literalism in the Bible is a very new phenomenon. In many ways, it's a product of the scientific revolution.

The only question that matters with regard to a religion and its mythology is “What do these stories mean?

I have to say that it's a weird feeling to have to respond to a Christian leader of an anti-Muslims organisation - it would be like having to respond to a Muslim leader of an anti-Jewish organisation about Judaism so the whole thing is kind of weird. Let me just say it's kind of convenient to simply pick and choose whatever violent bits and pieces one finds in the Koran and ignore the equally important versus that talk about compassion and peace.

Maybe when the President tells you that you should be afraid of Mexicans or Muslims or Jews or black people or gay people or trans people, you'll realize that those are just labels, that underneath it all we're all the same people, we all have the same aspirations, the same hopes, the same desires, that we all share the same values.

You can be a follower of Jesus and not necessarily be a Christian.

You have almost zero chance of being killed by a refugee in America. You have almost no chance of being killed in a terrorist attack by an immigrant - by any kind of immigrant, let alone an Islamic immigrant.

Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith.

The language of religion holds the most currency for the masses.

The truth of the matter is that when you write about religion like I do, you're writing about something that people take very seriously.

Religion is, by definition, interpretation; and by definition, all interpretations are valid. However, some interpretations are more reasonable than others.

Even the Quran, which Sufis respect as the direct speech of God, lacks the capacity to shed light upon God’s essence. As one Sufi master has argued, why spend time reading a love letter (by which he means the Quran) in the presence of the Beloved who wrote it?

The key to recognizing who Jesus was is to recognize this fundamental truth: He was a Jew.

If the resistance is going to bring Trump down, it will require Democrats to follow the people, not the other way around. My hope is that the Democrats will realize where their power lies, and will start taking their cues from the people on the ground and not the other way.

The bad news is that Iran wants to talk about everything except their nuclear program. They want to talk about regional cooperation, they want to talk about the sanctions issues, and it seems like the western powers want to talk about nothing more than the nuclear issue.

A politician is a politician whether he's wearing a suit or a funny hat.

I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years, and where religiosity is going in the future. I think that's a topic I've been chewing on for a few years; I would love to eventually work on and produce a book out of it.

Paul's lack of concern with the historical Jesus is not due, as some have argued, to his emphasis on Christological rather than historical concerns. It is due to the simple fact that Paul had no idea who the living Jesus was, nor did he care.

A majority of Israelis want to give up the West Bank for peace, and obviously the same thing is desired by the Palestinians. The strong voice of the president of the United States will have a major impact on public opinion, not only in this country, but also in Israel and also in Palestine.

Is it possible that Jesus, unlike 98 percent of his fellow Jews, was literate and educated? Yes, it's possible.

There's no question that homophobia is rampant among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - but that doesn't negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities.

God doesn't make you a bigot. You're just a bigot.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

We need to do whatever we can, legally and within our power, to remove Donald Trump from office as fast as possible before something serious happens in this country.

The west is very concerned and actually afraid because the media is not informing them. There are too many moderate Muslims who are trying to whitewash the fears and concerns of the West. It's time for us to face reality - nobody is against Muslims. When I'm speaking about this situation, it's about Islamic doctrine. Islamic doctrine promotes violence and hatred against non Muslims. 60% of the Koran is dedicated to cursing and spreading hatred and violence against non-Muslims who are called 'Kaffir'.

The way you confront an organization like that is twofold. No. 1, you kill their militants. There is no room for discussion or negotiation when it comes to an ISIS or an Al Qaeda militant. They don’t want anything concrete. And if you want nothing that’s measurable or concrete, there is nothing to talk about. You must be destroyed.