Imalah

“It is simplistic and naive to explain jihadism merely as an inevitable growth from Islam’s ‘violent’ scripture, or as no more than a miscarried interpretation triggered solely by some tragic misreading. It cannot be separated from economic discontent, the enveloping context of US global power, America’s influence and military actions in the Muslim world and, most of all, the gaping sore of the Israel–Palestine conflict.”
― Jonathan A.C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy

“No one knows loneliness like an atheist. When an average person feels isolated, he can call through the depths of his soul to One who knows him and sense an answer. An atheist cannot allow himself that luxury, for he has to crush the urge and remind himself
of its absurdity.”
― Jeffrey Lang, Struggling to Surrender: Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“You cannot simply read the Quran,not if you take it seriously.You either have surrendered to it already or you fight it.
It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.
From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side.”
― Jeffrey Lang, Struggling to Surrender: Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam