There is an enormous amount of mistrust towards me. They say that what I'm saying is too good to be true, and that I must say something else when I speak in Arabic. Trust is missing, the progress made is not acknowledged.

Being Muslim has become synonymous with pointed questions, with tension and mistrust, even with conflict. It has become a global phenomenon with profound consequences for inter-communal relations, political rhetoric and policies at the local, regional, national and international level.

I've never suffered because of my heritage in Europe.

We've got to get away from the idea that scholars in the Islamic world can do our thinking for us. We need to start thinking for ourselves.

Cultures, along with the religions that shape and nurture them, are value systems, sets of traditions and habits clustered around one or several languages, producing meaning: for the self, for the here and now, for the community, for life.

Instead of looking outside of ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us.