“My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.”

But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.

In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.

However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.

My conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.

In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and main on religious grounds.

All my life I have been a nomad.

I believe that the dysfunctional Muslim family constitutes a real threat to the very fabric of western life. It is in the family that children are groomed to practise, promote and pass on the norms of their parents’ culture.

They decided to let immigrants in and I am an immigrant. They gave us a chance to participate in this country’s life and I took it.

We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.

I’d like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.

I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.

European children are educated in a narrative of human tolerance every day, and if you want to be sure to prevent a backlash, you should at least think of bringing Muslim children and teenagers into the fold of that narrative of tolerance.

I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.

I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.

One has to nurture a new generation, to raise children in the spirit of Islam.

All people hope Islam helps everything in life.

We have not ceased to insist that an Islam of tolerance is advantageous to all Muslims, for the Afghans and the whole world and we will always defend it.

Islam is fixed, stable, ordered and disciplined, and so are Muslims.

The Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number.

We should be proud that our Prophet came into the world with the message of Islam to change it for the better, and not for the worse, or to keep things as they are.

Islam is nothing but man’s exclusive and total submission to God.

If my children do not behave according to Islam, if they do not pray for instance, I will punish them.