Quotes from Tariq Ramadan

Nothing is ever final" is a lesson in humility; "no final judgment should be passed" is a promise of hope. The

We have to watch the world, and watch ourselves, with the humility of those who know, in the very depths of their being, that learning to become human is a process that never ends.

The first verses establish an immediate correspondence with what Revelation was later to recount about the creation of humankind: "He [God] taught Adam the names of all things."8 Reason, intelligence, language, and writing will grant people the qualities required to enable them to be God's khalifahs (vicegerents) on earth, and from the very beginning, Quranic Revelation allies recognition of the Creator to knowledge and science, thus echoing the origin of creation itself.9

We are then content with some well-intended speeches, and as far as the rest is concerned we would have to rely on God. As if "reliance on God" means a lack of intelligence or competence in action; as if the Qur'anic Revelation has not distinguished between orientation and state, between where we should be and where we are; between the actualised foundation of a social project and the well-intended expression of its form.

Human] wisdom is the believer's lost belonging; he is the most worthy of it wherever he finds it.

Spirituality means both accepting and mastering one's instincts: living one's natural desires in the light of one's principles is a prayer. It is never a misdeed, nor is it hypocrisy.

Before God and in conscience, Muslims cannot satisfy themselves by repeating what the texts say and then snap their fingers at daily social realities: that would be to speak of an ideal while at the same time blind themselves as to their daily betrayal.

North-South imbalances and the exploitation of men and raw materials, combined with the resignation of the peoples of the North, produce a much more devastating violence than that of armed groups, even if the latter are spectacular.

teach the heart not to give way to proud emotions and arrogant thinking; bring the mind to heart-soothing solutions that make it possible to control oneself gently and wisely.

Muhammad particularly loved cats, but, more generally, he constantly made his Companions aware of the need to respect all animal species. He

There can be no universal without diversity: the quest for the ultimate commonality would be pointless if we did not recognize the initial differences that explain just why we have to go in search of the universal.

the desert, more than anything else, opens the human mind to observation, meditation, and initiation into meaning.

we have to go forth in order to come back, plunge into time in order to be born anew, and roam the world in order to get back to ourselves at last.

The quest for meaning, which is always begun again by every human intellect, is to human consciousness what a fingerprint is to the body: shared by all, and unique to every individual. A universal singularity.

questioned by a Companion about the best possible hijrah, the Prophet was to answer: "It is to exile yourself [to move away] from evil [abominations, lies, sins]."12 This requirement of spiritual exile was to be repeated in different forms.

From Hinduism to the monotheisms through to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the common message is that we are all, naturally and potentially, inclined to reject the other, and to be intolerant and racist. Left to our own devices and our own emotions, we can be deaf, blind, dogmatic, closed and xenophobic: we are not born open-minded, respectful and pluralist. We become so through personal effort, education, self-mastery and knowledge.

Communion in faith, in the intimacy of meaning, cannot remain purely conceptual; it can maintain its vivifying energy only if it associates with communion in speech and action within a common space of social and cultural references. Faith needs culture.

That gentleness and kindness were the very essence of his teaching. He kept saying: "God is gentle [rafiq] and he loves gentleness [ar-rifq] in everything.

There are in you two qualities that God loves: clemency [al-hilm] and forbearance [al-ana, "nobleness," "tolerance"].

For three years, he quietly built up the first community of believers, whose particular feature was that it gathered, without distinction, women and men of all clans and all social categories (although the bulk were young or poor).

The old antiques dealer whispers to him that the secret of freedom and happiness lies in self-control and in a marriage between knowledge, will and power.

Ukoliko želite da imate dobar život nemojte nikada zaboraviti da ?ete umrijeti.

Les prisons les plus dangereuses sont celles dont on ne voit pas les barreaux.

Modesty is the way you deal with beauty, not the way you avoid it.