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I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that … I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul… .
The really important conversations I had in this period were with myself.
I said: Salman, you must send a message loud enough to … make ordinary Muslims see that you aren't their enemy, and you must make the West understand a little more of the complexity of Muslim culture …, and start thinking a little less stereotypically… . And I said to myself: Admit it, Salman, the Story of Islam has a deeper meaning for you than any of the other grand narratives. Of course you're no mystic, mister… . No supernaturalism, no literalist orthodoxies … for you. But Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was. … Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family. …
I reminded myself that I had always argued that it was necessary to develop the nascent concept of the "secular Muslim," who, like the secular Jew, affirmed his membership of the culture while being separate from the theology… . But, Salman, I told myself, you can't argue from outside the debating chamber. You've got to cross the threshold, go inside the room, and then fight for your humanized, historicized, secularized way of being a Muslim.

 

Salman Rushdie

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The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West… The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.

 

Aga Khan IV

 

Since the recent events in Bosnia, Tito has sometimes been criticized for creating a Muslim nation. He had three reasons for doing so. It fitted in with his policy of checks and balances to strengthen the Muslims against the stronger power of the Serbs; it went well with his foreign policy of alliance with the Non-aligned Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa; and he hoped he could weaken Muslim fundamentalism if it became accepted that it was possible for a Muslim not to be a fundamentalist or indeed any kind of Muslim in religion, but a Communist atheist by doctrine and a Muslim by nationality. He knew that he would get no support from Muslim fundamentalism, even before the Ayatollah Khomeini denounced him as an atheist persecutor of Islam.

 

Josip Broz Tito

 

I was born in a Muslim family and Muslim women suffer under Islam.

 

Taslima Nasrin

 

What's really hurting me, the name Islam is involved, and Muslim is involved and causing trouble and starting hate and violence. ... Islam is not a killer religion. ... Islam means peace, I couldn't just sit home and watch people label Muslims as the reason for this problem.

 

Muhammad Ali

 

I don't hate Islam. I consider it a backward culture. I have travelled much in the world. And wherever Islam rules, it's just terrible. All the hypocrisy. It's a bit like those old reformed protestants. The Reformed lie all the time. And why is that? Because they have standards and values that are so high that you can't humanly maintain them. You also see that in that Muslim culture. Then look at the Netherlands. In what country could an electoral leader of such a large movement as mine be openly homosexual? How wonderful that that's possible. That's something that one can be proud of. And I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much.

 

Pim Fortuyn