Reza Aslan famous quotes

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Religious #Rights #Practice

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Dream #Integrity #Talking

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Islam #World #Violence

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Jesus #Iran #Talking

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Believe #Mean #Belief

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Religious #Egypt #Iran

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Iran #Issues #Nuclear

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Leadership #Wisdom #Country

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Names #Knowing #Might

Things never happen the same way twice, dear one.
-- Reza Aslan

#Way #Dear

But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.
-- Reza Aslan

#Years #Bigger #Grows

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Religious #Jesus #Differences

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Islam #Use #Language

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Islamic #Years #Idols

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

#Stories #Understood

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

#Mean #Matter #Stories

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).
-- Reza Aslan

#War #Home #Fighting

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

#Islamic #Years #Europe

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Keys #Goal #East

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,
-- Reza Aslan

#Biblical #Two #Greek

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Journey #Mountain #Way

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

#Religion #Definitions #Interpretation

[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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Spiritual #Responsibility #Community

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

#Islamic

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Isis #Organization #Want

Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men
-- Reza Aslan

#Men #Indonesia #Equal

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

#Christian #Jesus #Followers

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#People #Community #Groups

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

#Jesus #Keys #Fundamentals

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

#Jesus #Thinking #Historical

When you forcefully suppress religious nationalism, you radicalize it.
-- Reza Aslan

#Religious #Nationalism

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Drama #War #Believe

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

#Jobs #Historian

The New Testament is not a historical document.
-- Reza Aslan

#Historical #New Testament #Testament

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Jesus #Crazy #Mean

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

#Suits #Hats #Politician

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?
-- Reza Aslan

#Reading #Mean #Essence

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.
-- Reza Aslan

#Jesus #Believe #Men

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

#Ideas #Bigotry

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

#Suicide #Iran #Nuclear

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

#Jesus #Doe #Use

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

#Jesus #Educated #Jew

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

#People #Use #Ideology