War & Peace Quote by Feisal Abdul Rauf

Rauf’s language is doing two jobs at once: rebutting a familiar suspicion and reasserting moral authority from inside the faith. The opening clause, “In the Muslim world,” stakes a collective terrain that’s often flattened into caricature; it’s a quiet corrective to the lazy Western frame that treats Muslim condemnation of extremism as rare, belated, or suspect. He then doubles down with “we have been very vocal,” not just claiming dissent exists, but insisting it has volume and continuity.

The pivot is the real tell: “But how to win this battle is an ongoing battle.” The repetition is almost awkward, and that’s the point. It communicates fatigue and realism. Condemning extremists is the easy headline; defeating them is messier, structural, and long-term. Rauf smuggles in an argument about strategy and patience without naming the controversial pieces: political grievances, social fragmentation, propaganda ecosystems, and the risks of militarized responses that can fertilize the very extremism they target.

“Wage the battle for peace” is a deliberately paradoxical phrase that borrows the grammar of war to defend a non-war aim. It’s meant to sound tough enough for security-minded listeners while keeping the theological and ethical center intact: peace isn’t passive; it requires disciplined, sustained effort. Subtext: if you want Muslims to “do more,” recognize that many already are - and that the fight isn’t just against extremists, but against the conditions that let extremism recruit, and the narratives that pretend Muslims are merely bystanders.