Karen Armstrong

"There are some forms of religion that must make God weep. There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as theres bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too. Religion that has concentrated on egotism, thats concentrated on belligerence rather than compassion. … But then you have to remember that this is what human beings do. Secularism has shown that it can be just as murderous, just as lethal … as religion. Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings."

"The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in Gods name, it was bad theology. Compassion was the litmus test for the prophets of Israel, for the rabbis of the Talmud, for Jesus, for Paul, and for Muhammad, not to mention Confucius, Lao-tsu, the Buddha, or the sages of the Upanishads."

"Like Austen, and in a polished English accent, Armstrong is sharp-witted, quick to ridicule nonsense, and a good storyteller. … In conversation, Armstrong spins the threads of her research with agile, unhesitating precision, leaping across centuries of scripture, philosophy and theology."

"Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Quran praises all the great prophets of the past. That Mohammed didnt believe he had come to found a new religion to which everybody had to convert, but he was just the prophet sent to the Arabs, who hadnt had a prophet before, and left out of the divine plan. Theres a story where Mohammed makes a sacred flight from Mecca to Jerusalem, to the Temple Mount. And there he is greeted by all the great prophets of the past. And he ascends to the divine throne, speaking to the prophets like Jesus and Aaron, Moses, he takes advice from Moses, and finally encounters Abraham at the threshold of the divine sphere. This story of the flight of Mohammed and the ascent to the divine throne is the paradigm, the archetype of Muslim spirituality. It reflects the ascent that every Muslim must make to God and the Sufis ...the mystical branch of Islam, the Sufi movement, insisted that when you had encountered God, you were neither a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim. You were at home equally in a synagogue, a mosque, a temple or a church, because all rightly guided religion comes from God, and a man of God, once hes glimpsed the divine, has left these man-made distinctions behind."

"The only way to show a true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God’s existence."

"I say that religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."

"Muhammad was one of those rare men who truly enjoy the company of women. Some of his male companions were astonished by his leniency towards his wives and the way they stood up to him and answered him back. Muhammad scrupulously helped with the chores, mended his own clothes and sought out the companionship of his wives."

"The Western media often give the impression that the embattled and occasionally violent form of religiosity known as "fundamentalism" is a purely Islamic phenomenon. This is not the case. Fundamentalism is a global fact and has surfaced in every major faith in response to the problems of our modernity. There is fundamentalist Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity, fundamentalist Hinduism, fundamentalist Buddhism, fundamentalist Sikhism, and even fundamentalist Confucianism."

"Religion is hard work. Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed."

"Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that its the sine qua non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, "whats the point of having religion if you cant disapprove of other people?" And sometimes we use religion just to back up these unworthy hatreds, because were frightened too."

"All fundamentalist movements… whether theyre Jewish, Christian or Muslim or Buddhist, all begin as an intra-religious debate, an intra-religious struggle. Then, at a later stage, fundamentalists sometimes reach out towards a foreign foe and hence the Muslim feeling that American foreign policy … is holding them back."

"I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest ways, we find it impossible, as Marshall Hodgson enjoined, to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant."