Many people are born into their religion. For them it is mostly a matter of legacy and convenience. Their belief is based on faith, not just in the teachings of the religion but also in the acceptance of that religion from their family and culture. For the person who converts, it is a matter of fierce conviction and defiance. Our belief is based on a combination of faith and logic because we need a powerful reason to abandon the traditions of our families and community to embrace beliefs foreign to both. Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.

Melalui kajian dan penyelidikan pengajian tingginya, Barat mendidik kaum terpelajar dunia Islam dan Timur sama ada dari segi ekonomi, sains dan teknologi, pentadbiran awam, sosiologi, falsafah mahupun agama. Secara yang cukup licik, Barat secara senyap-senyap menyusup di semua kedudukan dan jawatan strategis dunia melalui saluran pemikiran, ilmu dan pendidikan. Justeru idea dan pengaruh Barat menjadi satu cabaran amat besar terhadap bangsa-bangsa yang lain. Cabaran ilmu dan pengetahuan ini hanya mampu dipecahkan sekiranya kita memiliki universiti-universiti sendiri yang sekali gus bercirikan Islam dan moden.

There are many lay people and scholars alike, both with and without the Muslim community, who feel that the pure orthodox Islam of the fundamentalists could never survive outside the context of its seventh-century Arabian origins. Apply twenty-first-century science, logic, or humanistic reasoning to it and it falls apart.They believe this is why Islam has always relied so heavily on the threat of death. Question Islam, malign Islam, or leave Islam and you will be killed. It is a totalitarian modus operandi that silences all dissent and examination, thereby protecting the faith from ever having to defend itself.

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.' Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff.

سياسة الدولة في الإسلام جزء من تعاليمه، والإسلام دين بقدر ما هو قانون، و عقيدة بقدر ما هو نظام كامل للحياة.

Exercise 1: Guarding the PrayerOnce we are performing the five obligatory prayers with regularity, then it is certainly worth our efforts to begin increasing extra prayers- especially the late-night prayers (tahajjud). Late-night prayer is one of the defining qualities of a salih (righteous) person, also called a wali (friend of Allah). Regarding late-night prayers, Fudayl b. 'Iyyad said that if a man was unable to do them, it was due to his wrong actions during the day. May Allah make us befitting to stand before Him, here and in the hereafter.Agenda to Change our Condition, Hamza Yusuf & Zaid Shakir, S. 46

Penekanan al-Quran terhadap hubungan intim antara epistemologi dan aksiologi dan kerohanian bukan bertujuan untuk merubah keobjektifan data dan fakta yang telah disahkan dengan betul. Sebaliknya ia bertujuan untuk memberi petunjuk yang sempurna, hikmah dan makna berhubung pelbagai dimensi usaha-usaha epistemologi. Justeru itu konsep ilmu dalam Islam mempunyai tujuan, yang ekoran daripadanya pula sejajar secara idealnya dengan keperluan-keperluan weltanshauungnya. Pendapat kesemua sarjana Islam adalah tepat bahawa tujuan utama ilmu adalah untuk mengenali Allah. Walaupun mereka berselisih tentang darjah-darjah ilmu ini.

Based on the experience of history and civilization of mankind, which is more important for Muslims today, to no longer busy discussing the greatness that Muslims achieved in the past, or debating who first discovered the number zero, including the number one, two, three and so on, as the contribution of Muslims in the writing of numbers in this modern era and the foundation and development of civilizations throughout the world. But how Muslims will regained the lead and control of science and technology, leading back and become a leader in the world of science and civilization, because it represents a real achievement.

لقد حدد رسول الإسلام الغاية الأولى من بعثته، والمنهاج المبين في دعوته بقوله إنما بعثت لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق

Tapi kemudian saya merasa kerdil, naif. Saya bertanya pada diri sendiri. Seberapa tahu saya tentang agamanya? Pernahkah saya membaca segala sesuatu tentang agamanya secara objektif, secara proporsional? Lucu sekali jika saya mengharapkan dia mengerti agama saya sementara saya nggak mau tahu tentang keyakinannya —kalaupun saya membaca, buku-buku yang saya baca adalah buku tentang kesalahan agamanya. Maksud saya, bagaimana kalau dia juga berpikir seperti apa yang saya pikirkan. Dia mengharapkan saya membaca apa yang dia baca, meyakini apa yang ia yakini, masuk agama dia, dia mengasihani saya karena saya akan masuk neraka.

I'm a spiritual person, she said. "I believe in Allah, you know, though I don't always call It 'Allah' and I pray the way I want to pray. Sometimes I just look out at the stars and this love-fear thing comes over me, you know? And sometimes I might sit in a Christian church listening to them talk about Isa with a book of Hafiz in my hands instead of the hymnal. And you know what, Yusef? Sometimes, every once in a while, I get out my old rug and I pray like Muhammad prayed. I never learned the shit in Arabic and my knees are uncovered, but if Allah has a problem with that then what kind of Allah do we believe in?

ينهض الإنسان بما عنده من فكر عن الحياة والكون والإنسان، وعن علاقتها جميعها بما قبل الحياة الدنيا وما بعدها.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If, for the sake of argument, 1 million are violent, that's a mere .000625 percent of them. I wonder who among you wants to be judged on such a tiny minority. Further, at 1.6 billion, if all Muslims - or even most Muslims - were violent, the world would already be in flames. Most people simply want to live their lives in peace, with some degree of material comfort. I find it bizarre - and disturbing - that so many Americans imagine that being a Muslim somehow trumps human nature and makes ordinary simple people want to rise up and kill everyone. That takes a special kind of stupid.

It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of secual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values. The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life.

والمتدين الذي يباشر بعض العبادات، ويبقى بعدها بادى الشر، كالح الوجه، قريب العداون كيف يحسب امرءاً تقيّاً؟