Faith & Spirit Quote by Feisal Abdul Rauf

Rauf’s line is a strategic reframing of what most people were trained to see as a civilizational clash. By declaring the “battleground” internal to every religion, he drains power from the neat, media-friendly binary of Islam-versus-the-West and replaces it with a cross-cutting coalition: moderates everywhere versus radicals everywhere. The repetition of “all faith traditions” and “all parts of the world” isn’t just emphasis; it’s an attempt to make radicalism look provincial and parasitic, a fringe phenomenon that survives by hijacking global attention.

The intent is partly defensive and partly aspirational. Defensive, because it refuses collective guilt: no single community “owns” extremism. Aspirational, because it recruits allies across doctrinal lines, implying a shared moral center that can outnumber the zealots. The subtext is a critique of security narratives that treat religion itself as the threat. Rauf is saying the real fault line runs through congregations, families, and nations, not between them.

Context matters: as a Muslim theologian speaking in the shadow of post-9/11 politics and the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy, Rauf needed language that could defuse suspicion without sounding like apology. So he chooses a universal grammar of moderation, betting that audiences are more willing to defend “moderates” than to listen to a lecture about Islam. It’s also a subtle warning: when states and pundits paint with a broad brush, they strengthen the radicals by validating their story of inevitable war.