War & Peace Quote by Feisal Abdul Rauf

Rauf’s line is built like a handshake with knuckles: open-palmed in its stated aim, clenched in its boundaries. The first sentence refuses the framing that Muslims, in post-9/11 American public life, were often forced into: proving “moderation” by diluting doctrine, treating faith like a negotiable credential. “Toy” and “barter” are deliberately transactional verbs, evoking a marketplace where identity is haggled over. By rejecting that premise outright, he’s not just defending religion; he’s contesting the rules of the conversation.

The subtext is political without sounding like a stump speech. “Our religion or any other” widens the claim to a principle: no community should have to purchase belonging by performing religious self-erasure. It’s also a preemptive rebuttal to critics who hear “interfaith” as code for theological compromise. Rauf is drawing a line between dialogue and dilution. The message to skeptics is: you don’t get to set the price of admission.

Then the pivot: “We are here to extend our hands.” The language shifts from commerce to kinship, from bargaining to building. It’s savvy rhetoric: firmness first, then an invitation. Peace and harmony are not presented as sentimental goals but as outcomes of mutual respect - a peace made sturdier because it doesn’t require anyone to pretend they’re less themselves. In contexts like the Ground Zero mosque controversy and the broader anxiety around Islam in the West, that structure matters: dignity as the condition for coexistence, not the reward for compliance.