Fra bogen The Messenger (Penguin Books paperback, 2008), s. 22:
Islam is a message of justice that entails resisting oppression and protecting the dignity of the oppressed and the poor, and Muslims must recognize the moral value of a law or contract stipulating this requirement, whoever its authors and whatever the society, Muslim or not. Far from building an allegiance to Islam in which recognition and loyalty are exclusive to the community of faith, the Prophet strove to develop the believer’s conscience through adherence to principles transcending closed allegiances in the name of a primary loyalty to universal principles themselves. The last message brings nothing new to the affirmation of human dignity, justice, and equality: it merely recalls and confirms them.
Men hvad så med forestillingen om rettroenhed og om, at ikke-muslimer eller ikke-kristne er vantro alle til hobe? Som Ramadan ser det, er islam “by no means a closed value system at variance or conflicting with other value systems”:
The Prophet did not conceive the content of his message as the expression of pure otherness versus what the Arabs or other societies of his time were producing. Islam does not establish a closed universe of reference but rather relies on a set of universal principles that can coincide with the fundamentals and values of other beliefs and religious traditions.
Pragmatisk tolerance og plads til alle, med andre ord, så længe man tror på lighed, retfærdighed og menneskelig værdighed – et elementært sæt af værdier, som mange af verdens kyniske magthavere blæser på, også (naturligvis) i den islamiske verden, hvilket Ramadan utvivlsomt er meget bevidst om. Men smukt udtrykt, det er det.
Ja, man æder jo alt råt fra barnebarnet af Det muslimske Broderskab.
doh: Jeg vidste ikke, et broderskab kunne have børnebørn? 🙂