In an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity.
Maajid Nawaz
Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism.
If liberalism is to mean anything at all, it is duty bound to support without hesitation the dissenting individual over the group, the heretic over the orthodox, innovation over stagnation, and free speech over offense.
Muslim communities themselves, as they expect mainstream society to stand down racists, must do more to also stand down the Islamist extremists.
Language that is designed to dehumanize has consequences.
Societies should be judged by how they treat the weakest among them.
My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.
America did not invade Iraq because Iraqis are Muslims. Oil, money, economic interests. Who knows? But it was not because Iraqis are Muslims.
In Bosnia, the case was there were white, blond-haired, blue-eyed Muslims who were being slaughtered and identified as Muslims. That really touched me.
Rather than allowing jihadists to shut down debate, it must proliferate so much that they simply cannot kill us all.
Having our fundamental assumptions about life challenged is never a comfortable thing.
I was imprisoned in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Egypt's state security was rounding people up in unprecedented numbers.
Islam will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it.
I come from an immigrant family, but I know no other nationality apart from British.
Non-violent extremism is essentially the increase of intolerant and bigoted demands made by groups seeking to dominate society.
The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a wider threat to the stability of the Middle East and the West than many realise.
The only way we can challenge Islamism is to engage with one another. We need to make it as abhorrent as racism has become today. Only then will we stem the tide of angry young Muslims who turn to hate.
Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.
What we cannot deny is that there's an association between exclusion, segregation, non-violent extremist thinking, and jihadism.
Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.
Expressing myself through language was always something that I had had to learn to do more so than others.
Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism.
I used to MC a bit when I was young - 14 or 15 years old.
One of the problems we're facing is, in my view, that there are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies.
I was held in the Mazra Tora Prison for my role as leader of the pan-Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir in Alexandria.
The British and French governments have taken a strong stance against 'extremist content' online when addressing their approach to tackling extremism.
I was in prison with pretty much the who's who of the jihadist and Islamist scene of Egypt at the time, and Egypt was the cradle of Islamism for the world - it's where it began and where jihadism began as well.
There are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. There is no equivalent of Al-Qaeda without the terrorism.
Dogma not only blinds its protagonist, but it muzzles all other opposition.
I was, by the way - I'm an Essex lad, born and raised in Essex in the U.K.
Neoconservatism had the philosophy that you go in with a supply-led approach to impose democratic values from the top down. Whereas Islamists and far-right organizations, for decades, have been building demand for their ideology on the grassroots.
The only certainty we have is that those who are certain of a way to arrive at worldly salvation, are committed enough to organize around this, and seek power to enforce it, will invariably descend into a bloody totalitarian fascism.
As people's opportunities to succumb to confirmation bias increases online - only seeking out information that confirms their prejudices - ignorance, extremism and close-mindedness have continued to rise unabated.
There are members - very, very close and dear members - of my family - I'm talking immediate family - who simply don't speak to me anymore and haven't done so for years. My marriage fell apart.
The truth is, 'Charlie Hebdo' is not a racist magazine. Rather, it is a campaigning anti-racist left-wing magazine.
For my own part, once I became a teenager, I experienced severe and violent racism.
Increased sympathy for an Islamist cause, lack of integration, and the absence of acceptance of Muslims into British society makes it harder for Muslims to challenge Islamism and tough for non-Muslims to understand it.
I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty's 'soft' approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge.
The Islamist ideology took decades to incubate within our communities, and it will take decades to debunk.
Academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them.
By the age of 24, I found myself convicted in prison in Egypt, being blacklisted from three countries in the world for attempting to overthrow their governments, being subjected to torture in Egyptian jails, and sentenced to five years as a prisoner of conscience.
Chance explorations on search engines do not 'accidentally' lead users to extremist websites.
We cannot hope to effectively counter extremism if we just focus on schools, universities and prisons: we need to take this online as well.
I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.
After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.
I really didn't grow up religious, and I didn't grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani.
Hip-hop in the '90s began moving towards the Nation of Islam and the 5 Percenters, black nationalist movements; very much so, these movements embraced a form of Islam: Malcom X's form of Islam prior to his change.
What's my audience? British society. Am I received relatively well? Yes. Is there within that... if you break it down, challenges with Muslim communities? Of course there are.
The conclusion that I have come to is that actually, no religion, whether it's Islam, Christianity or any idea based on scripture or texts, is a religion of 'anything,' really.
I can say with a level of confidence that Islam is not a religion of war, only because the majority of Muslims don't subscribe to that perspective, not because there's something inherent in the text that tells me it's a religion of peace.
