Salman Rushdie Quotes about Islam

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No, I don't think it's fair to label Islam 'violent.' But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.

No, I don't think it's fair to label Islam 'violent.' But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.

Salman Rushdie

Thinking, Islam, Labels

Even the Islam stuff I thought was pretty respectful about Islam in a funny way. I mean, yes, from a secular point of view, but it talks about the birth of this religion, and I thought it was pretty admiring of the person at the center of it, the prophet of Islam.

Salman Rushdie

Mean, Views, Islam

If Islam is to be reconciled with modernity, these voices must be encouraged until they swell into a roar.

Salman Rushdie

Order, Voice, Islam

"Moderate Muslims must roar, says Rushdie". www.cnn.com. November 3, 2001.

When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.

Salman Rushdie

Writing, Islam, Satanic

"A translated man". Interview with James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2006.

In early Islam, it was an absolute tenet that the prophet was not to be worshipped. The prophet was a messenger. And one of the things that's happened in Islam is this cult of the prophet, which to my view is counter to the original tradition.

Salman Rushdie

Views, Islam, Messengers

In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

Salman Rushdie

Iran, Islam, Trying

If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.

Salman Rushdie

Dream, Country, Islam

Salman Rushdie (2008). “Step Across This Line”, p.219, Random House

I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom.... Actually Existing Islam ... which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in.

Salman Rushdie

Islam, Culture, Weapons

"Excerpts From Rushdie's Address: 1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor'". Address at Columbia University, www.nytimes.com. December 12, 1991.

Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's an enormous amount of factual historical record about the life of a prophet and about social conditions in Arabia at that time. So it's possible to look at the origin of Islam in a scholarly way.

Salman Rushdie

World Religions, Historical, Islam

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.

Salman Rushdie

Writing, Islam, Fiction

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.

Salman Rushdie

Pride, Soul, Islam

"Excerpts From Rushdie's Address: 1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor'". Address at Columbia University, www.nytimes.com. December 12, 1991.

This paranoid Islam, which blames outsider, 'infidels', for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.

Salman Rushdie

Islam, World, Growing

Salman Rushdie (2008). “Step Across This Line”, p.218, Random House

To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death.

Salman Rushdie

Ideas, Religion, Islam