Quotes from Ziauddin Sardar

The roots of our ecological crises are axiomatic: they lie in our belief and value structures which shape our relationship with nature, with each other and the lifestyles we lead.

Dignity is not located in seeking equality with the white man and his civilization: it is not about assuming the attitudes of the master who has allowed his slaves to eat at his table. It is about being oneself with all the multiplicities, systems and contradictions of one's way of being, doing and knowing. It is about being true to one's Self.

A moral compass does not cease to function because one's surroundings are new and strange, or else it is no compass at all.

Basing his work on F.R. Leavis's (1895–1978) ideas on literary criticism, Hoggart argued that a critical reading of art could reveal "the felt quality of life" of a society. Only art could recreate life in all its rich complexity and diversity.

The best richness is the richness of the soul;

The Sanctuary and its deities were the main source of the city's income. Visitors paid to enter the city. They had to buy the correct apparel to perform rituals in the Sanctuary. They had to pay again to acquire offerings for the gods. Mecca was not just one of the world's oldest shrines, it was a citadel for capitalism. The people who oiled the wheels of Meccan religious life were known as Hums.

It is a paradox of human dynamics, of how the progress of new ideas often rests on the survival of old ways.

the Quraysh leadership and remained

How you get here is immaterial, it's being here that really matters.

In today's globalized and interconnected world, it is foolish to imagine that anything can be studied in isolation.

Time is a dimension of human understanding, a challenge to our assumptions, imagination and our ability to make and, on occasion, break connections.

In chaos there is order, and in order there lies chaos.

Pop fiction falls between the private and personal world of the home and the outside world of the publishers, studios, record labels and broadcasters, massive corporations which threaten to turn the most fundamental quality of human beings – our unending love of communication – into big business and, at its worst, propaganda.

we spend one-third of our lives immersed in the media. Our abilities to speak, think, form relationships with others, even our dreams and our own sense of identity are now shaped by the media. So, studying the media is studying ourselves as social creatures.

culture as a theme or topic of study has replaced society as the general subject of inquiry among progressives.

Sir Thomas Roe in 1605 to establish a company in India

There is no objective test for divine revelation, no forensic evidence to evaluate. Even for the believer it is an experience beyond normal comprehension. It is, as T.S. Eliot put it, the intersection of the timeless with time. Mortals on occasion may, perhaps, catch transient glimpses that give intimations of this profound experience, which is the theme of Eliot's poem The Four Quartets.

What is done with one's vision of the past has enormous implications for how present realities are handled and the quality of idealism that can be applied to shaping the future.