Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam.

Quotes

Why I am not a Muslim

  • Spring 1989 will always remain as a kind of watershed in intellectual and world history. In February 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini delivered his infamous fatwa on Salman Rushdie. Immediately following in its wake came short interviews with or articles by Western intellectuals, Arabists, and Islamologists blaming Rushdie for bringing the barbarous sentence onto himself by writing the Satanic Verses. John Esposito, an American expert on Islam, claimed he knew “of no Western scholar of Islam who would not have predicted that [Rushdie’s] kind of statements would be explosive.” That is sheer hypocrisy coming from a man who has published extracts from Sadiq al-Azm’s previously quoted book, that had also dared to criticize Islam.
    • Ibn Warraq: Why I am not a Muslim, Chapter 1
  • This book is first and foremost an assertion of my right to criticize everything and anything in Islam - even to blaspheme, to make errors, to satirize, and mock.
    • Quoted from Daniel Pipes in Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • After their spectacular conquests, the Arabs were unwilling to concede equality to the non-Arab converts to Islam, despite Islamic doctrine that expressively forbade discrimination. But for the Arabs there were the conquered and the conquerors... The Arabs ruled as a sort of conquistador tribal aristocracy.
    • p. 202.

About Ibn Warraq

  • When Warraq speaks of science, he allows that it is in this domain that "we come at last to the true greatness of Islamic civilization" ... But Warraq argues that it was despite Islam that Islamic science developed.
    • George Albert Wells, review in FREE INQUIRY, Winter 1995/96, quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • Why I am Not a Muslim does have a mocking quality, to be sure, but it is also a serious and thought-provoking book. It calls not for a wall of silence, much less a Rushdie-like fatwa on the author's life, but for an equally compelling response from a believing Muslim.
    • Daniel Pipes: Review in The Weekly Standard of New York, U.S.A., on January 22, 1996. quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • His work will one day be seen as the moral and intellectual breakthrough that led to the Islamic Aufklarung.
    • Taslima Nasrin, Review in the Norwegian journal, FRI TANKE, No. 6, dated 22 October 1997. quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • Ibn Warraq's book is so inspiring and so full of brilliant ideas and hard facts as well, that the reviewer never stops wanting to mention further chapters.
    • Jan Knappert quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • Ibn Warraq is the pen-name of the author whose parents emigrated from India to Pakistan as a result of the Partition. He was brought up in Pakistan, which was supposed to be an Islamic Republic. His experience revealed to him that the Muslims of India had been cheated in the name of Islam and its projected principles of equality, free will and democracy. As he grew up, he noticed that Islam had become an effective tool of convenient morality and achieving political goals; a religious or secular leader could prove anything from the Koran and Hadith to suit his purpose, yet every faithful believes that there is no contradiction in the verses of the Koran!
    • Anwar Shaikh quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • Ibn Warraq's book will either be ignored with deadly thoroughness or cause an enormous riot.
    • Hans Jansen quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
  • Why I am Not A Muslim is not a book of fantasy - or of veiled attack - like Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. It is a deeply felt intellectual tour de force by a great Muslim scholar whose heart bleeds for the fate of his fellow Muslims, and whose thirst for knowledge has led him on a path of incomparable research and study. Because of the well-known (and widely feared) Muslim proclivity to violence the book had to be brought out by an American humanist publisher rather than any of the major publishing houses. It is doubtful that there exists another work on the subject as scholarly, as detailed or as comprehensive, not to say as courageous. Looking at the scene in India, the writings of Hamid Dalwai and A.B. Shah have set many people thinking about the nature of Islam. If Ibn Warraq's book were to be made widely available in India, it may serve to open the eyes of the people further.
    • N. Innaiah quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.