A Quote by Gijs de Vries

The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy. — © Gijs de Vries
The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy.
Indonesia is the world's third-largest democracy. And we also have the world's largest Muslim population. This demonstrates that democracy and Islam are not incompatible. Terrorism is not associated with any religion.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.
I would expect the fundamentalists to agree with me that democracy is incompatible with fundamentalist Islam. Moderate Muslims have to decide which side of the argument they are on.
Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.
To the government, terrorism committed by people who happen to be Muslim is not in any way a reflection of legitimate interpretation of Islam. You might find this hard to believe, but if you're doubting any of this, just search your own memory. All the times that we have heard that Islam's a religion of peace and that we can't use the word "terrorism" to describe it and Obama will not use it. And then remember all the times that this administration actually claims that violence by white right-wing white Christians poses a greater threat to the people of America than Islam.
You ought not to accept the claim that this is a religious practice. I think that's, frankly, problematic for Islam, for well-intentioned Liberals like you to say that this is a religious practice when the overwhelming consensus of Islamic scholars around the world, and the overwhelming majority of Canadian Muslims, believe this has absolutely - that the niqab as face covering, that this symbol of misogyny has nothing to do with Islam.
Rather than being a 'perversion' of Islam, it is truer to say that the version of Islam espoused by ISIS, while undoubtedly the worst possible interpretation of Islam, and for Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere obviously the most destructive version of Islam, is nevertheless a plausible interpretation of Islam.
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.
Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable
Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable.
We must not be afraid to define our enemy. It is Islamic extremist terrorism. I did not say all of Islam. I said Islamic extremist terrorism. Failing to identify them properly maligns decent Muslims around the world. It also sets up a fear of being politically incorrect that can have serious consequences. And it has.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong.
ISIS is not Islam. No, I'm not saying that. The government says that. The left, the media says it. ISIS is not Islam. You've heard Obama say that. ISIS is making a mockery of Islam. In fact, what you really need to understand about the way our government looks at Islam, they look at Islam as anti-terror as well. Islam is anti-terrorism. Therefore, no terrorism can actually be Islamic.
The word "democracy" is a Western word obviously. It doesn't exist in Arabic. Democratiya is a loan word. We in the Western world make the great mistake of assuming that ours is the only form of good government; that democracy means what it means in the Anglo-American world and a few other places in the West, but not many others. Muslims have their own tradition on limited government. Now in Islam, there is a very strong political tradition. Because the different circumstances, Islam is political from the very beginning.
To the government, terrorism committed by people who are Muslim is not a reflection on the legitimate interpretation of Islam, even if Islamic supremacist ideology, which endorses jihad violence - Islam, standard, mainstream Islam endorses jihad violence, but our government doesn't want to admit that or deal with it. Here in America, as in Western Europe, this is the key to understand.
'Islamist terrorism.' The very phrase is contentious. No one wants to make this problem harder by unfairly branding and alienating a quarter of the world's population, and even in this construction, no one should be thinking this means all of Islam or all Muslims.
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