Mehdi Hasan

“Religion is simply one of a multitude of factors - economic political, cultural, social, tribal, racial - which shape and drive human action and reaction and often is the least important of those factors.”

“There's a general ignorance about how Muslims live and what Muslims believe.”

“There is very little chance of the modern Republican Party putting the national interest above their own partisan interests.”

“I have a long history of defending, and promoting, free speech and open debate - especially (especially!) within Muslim communities.”

“You underestimate John Bolton at your peril.”

“Orthodox Islam, like orthodox interpretations of the other Abrahamic faiths, views homosexuality as sinful and usually defines marriage as only ever a heterosexual union. This isn't to say that there is no debate on the subject.”

“I was 13 years old when I first heard of the Sultan of Brunei. The absolute ruler of a tiny, oil-rich kingdom in Southeast Asia, Hassanal Bolkiah was the subject of a much-discussed TV documentary by the British filmmaker Alan Whicker in 1992. As a young teenager, sitting in front of the television, I was in awe of this Muslim king.”

“Bigotry and demonisation of difference are usually the hallmark of immature and childish minds.”

“The inconvenient truth that our lazy media elites do so much to ignore is that Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and Warren are much closer in their views to the vast majority of ordinary Americans than the Bloombergs or the Bidens. They are the true centrists, the real moderates; they represent the actual political middle.”

“You cannot appease fascism by meeting it in the middle; you cannot beat racism by indulging or excusing it.”

“It is worth noting that Steve King of Iowa is far from the only Republican member of Congress to offer cover to white nationalists.”

“It is man - whether believer or non-believer - who is responsible for global unrest. And it is human beings who have to learn to co-exist in the 21st century, outside of divisive social constructs, religious or otherwise.”

“The state exists to serve and protect every citizen, regardless of colour, creed, race or religion - and the welfare state should exist to and protect the populace in the same non-discriminatory and universal manner.”

“The common stereotype of the Middle Eastern, Muslim-born terrorist is not just lazy and inaccurate but easy fodder for the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam far right.”

“The French elites' strategy of trying to defeat the Le Pens by aping their rhetoric, stealing their policies, and pandering to their voters has been a political and moral failure.”

“I am a believing and practising Muslim - but I am also a social democrat.”

“How many Americans, for example, are aware of the fact that U.S. planes dropped on the Korean peninsula more bombs - 635,000 tons - and napalm - 32,557 tons - than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II?”

“None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.”

“To claim that ISIS is Islamic is egregiously inaccurate and empirically unsustainable, not to mention insulting to the 1.6 billion non-violent adherents of Islam across the planet.”

“It isn't only Republicans, it seems, who traffic in alternative facts. Since Donald Trump's shock election victory, leading Democrats have worked hard to convince themselves, and the rest of us, that his triumph had less to do with racism and much more to do with economic anxiety - despite almost all of the available evidence suggesting otherwise.”