Quotes by Feisal Abdul Rauf

About Feisal Abdul Rauf:

Feisal Abdul Rauf is an American Sufi imam, author, and activist whose stated goal is to improve relations between the Muslim world and the West. From 1983 to 2009, he served as Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a mosque in New York City. He has written three books on Islam and its place in contemporary Western society, including What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America, and founded two non-profit organizations whose stated missions are to enhance the discourse on Islam in society.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You take the best of our tradition as a start, and I'll take the best of Christianity ... From there we can build.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The ultimate vision is to instate in the Muslim world the notion of multiculturalism, which is part of our heritage and history, part of the fundamental, mainstream ideals of Islam.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I was completely surrounded by religion from a young time. I was taught by my father. I engaged in discussions with him and many of these scholars who visited and came around the dining table, the lunch table, and attended many lectures with my dad. ...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I am an American citizen born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents. I grew up in Great Britain, Malaysia, and Egypt and have lived in the United States since 1965, when I was seventeen.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Americans must outgrow the unbecoming arrogance that leads us to assert that America somehow owns a monopoly on goodness and truth - a belief that leads some to view the world as but a stage on which to play out the great historical drama: the United...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

It is part of my responsibility as a bridge builder to speak the truth about what's great about America, what we've done right, and what our less glorious moments. And many people feel that the Iraq adventure, for example, has been one of our less gl...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

There are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It's fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama's father was a Muslim and people have used thi...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God - or Allah, in Arabic - and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith,...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Bigotry toward any faith community cannot have any place in civilized society anywhere in the world.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killin...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I've spoken with friends who are rabbis and priests and we've agreed that most people have an emotional attachment to their faith, a desire to fulfill their spiritual longings, but they are not experts in understanding the history of their religion.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The battleground has been moderates of all faith traditions in all the countries of the world against the radicals of all faith traditions in all parts of the world.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Staying chaste until marriage, a commandment of my faith, was one of the most difficult challenges of my young life. I had a powerful sense that if I did not get a grip on my identity, my ethics, and my religion, I would go off the rails.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

God says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God's religion. It's the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Religion is defined by the relationship between God and man. And Islam is the submission and the acknowledgment of the human being to the creator.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Koran says whoever believes in God in the last day shall be saved. It is a religion whose very name, Islam, comes from the word Shalom, which means peace. It's about establishing peace. We greet each other with peace be upon you, which the Jews do in...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I read, read enormously on all different fields of Islamic thought, from philosophy to Islamic literature, poetry, exegeses, knowledge of the Hadith, the teachings of the prophet. That's how I trained myself. And then I was appointed imam by a Sufi m...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The thing about the Islamic situation is we don't have a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It's very much like any field of knowledg...

Feisal Abdul Rauf

My life has been devoted to peacemaking.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Author Bio

  • NameFeisal Abdul Rauf
  • DescriptionAmerican imam
  • Born1948
  • CountryUnited States Of America