Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret – these symbols represent human life in all its diversity.
Behind every great man is not a woman, she is beside him, she is with him, not behind him.
The logic of freedom of religion implies freedom to be an atheist, even though, from a historical perspective, this has not been accepted in the Muslim world.
Feeling sympathy and searching for explanations isn’t the same as believing that the violence is justified.
Islam, as a religion, has been established in France for a long time, and the religious question has been resolved in this country. Islam does not threaten France’s future in any way.
The Islamic world is obsessed with the notion of strong leaders. This is a mistake. We don’t need powerful leaders, but rather unconventional, progressive thinkers with the courage to open our minds.
Deeply, simply: he who cannot love cannot understand.
The desert is often the locus of prophecies because it naturally offers to the human gaze the horizons of the infinite.
Your enemy is not the refugee. Your enemy is the one who made him a refugee.
Mental ghettos are not mirages; they actually exist in palpable reality: being “open” inside one’s mental or intellectual ghetto does not open its door but simply allows one to harbour the illusion that there is no ghetto and no door. The most dangerous prisons are those with invisible bars.
We have to watch the world, and watch ourselves, with the humility of those who know, in the very depths of their being, that learning to become human is a process that never ends.
We are then content with some well-intended speeches, and as far as the rest is concerned we would have to rely on God. As if “reliance on God” means a lack of intelligence or competence in action; as if the Qur’anic Revelation has not distinguished between orientation and state, between where we should be and where we are; between the actualised foundation of a social project and the well-intended expression of its form.
The Prophet’s life is an invitation to a spirituality that avoids no question and teaches us – in the course of events, trials, hardships, and our quest – that the true answers to existential questions are more often those given by the heart than by the intelligence. Deeply, simply: he who cannot love cannot understand.
Nothing is ever final” is a lesson in humility; “no final judgment should be passed” is a promise of hope. The.
Muhammad particularly loved cats, but, more generally, he constantly made his Companions aware of the need to respect all animal species. He.
There can be no universal without diversity: the quest for the ultimate commonality would be pointless if we did not recognize the initial differences that explain just why we have to go in search of the universal.
The quest for meaning, which is always begun again by every human intellect, is to human consciousness what a fingerprint is to the body: shared by all, and unique to every individual. A universal singularity.
From Hinduism to the monotheisms through to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the common message is that we are all, naturally and potentially, inclined to reject the other, and to be intolerant and racist. Left to our own devices and our own emotions, we can be deaf, blind, dogmatic, closed and xenophobic: we are not born open-minded, respectful and pluralist. We become so through personal effort, education, self-mastery and knowledge.
Spirituality means both accepting and mastering one’s instincts: living one’s natural desires in the light of one’s principles is a prayer. It is never a misdeed, nor is it hypocrisy.
The old antiques dealer whispers to him that the secret of freedom and happiness lies in self-control and in a marriage between knowledge, will and power.
Communion in faith, in the intimacy of meaning, cannot remain purely conceptual; it can maintain its vivifying energy only if it associates with communion in speech and action within a common space of social and cultural references. Faith needs culture.