23 Quotes by Robert R. Reilly

The past glories of Islamic civilization show that it was once ableto progress. That progress was based upon a different set of ideas,antithetical to those of the Islamists, who would have been consideredheretical then.

Al-Ghazali immodestly claims that, to prepare for the enterprise, he mastered the sum total of relevant knowledge: “There is no philosopher whose system I have not fathomed, nor theologian the intricacies of whose doctrine I have not followed out. Sufism has no secrets into which I have not penetrated.” He is the master of all.

There are two fundamental ways to close the mind. One is to deny reason’s capability of knowing anything. The other is to dismiss reality as unknowable.

Since then Sunni Islam has adopted the official position that no new interpretations of the law can be entertained, and that what seemed right in twelfth-century Cairo or Baghdad must seem right today.

Those eager to make a new beginning must accept beforehand that the traditional mind will lead them to nowhere.