“We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.”

No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion Islam is not Islamophobia.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn’t the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them.

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.

Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my – it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I’ve called it the re-humanisation process.

I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.

No form of theocracy, whether it’s manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.

I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they’ve joined.

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.

I’m yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn’t homophobic, that isn’t bigoted to the out group.

I am everything I am today, because of my past.

Once you subscribe to an ideological dogma as a solution to certain grievances, it then frames your mindset.

Anyone who is funny and doesn’t take herself to seriously is attractive to me

It’s really attractive if a man has a skill that you want to improve in yourself. If you can learn from someone, then that’s sexy.

Intelligence makes even the ugly look attractive.

A busy, vibrant, goal-oriented woman is so much more attractive than a woman who waits around for a man to validate her existence.

You must be ready to give up even the most attractive ideas when experiment shows them to be wrong.

All I want to do is to make movies that are appealing to people.

God does not love sinners because they are attractive; sinners are attractive to God because he loves them.

Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn’t do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.