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Religion is defined by the relationship between God and man. And Islam is the submission and the acknowledgment of the human being to the creator.

The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

Islam will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it.

The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God - or Allah, in Arabic - and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we... bear witness that there is no God but God.

For one, the Qur'an is considered by Muslims to consist entirely of words spoken by Allah himself.

Not all Muslims wish to express themselves in public through a communal religious identity. Identities are multiple, and some may wish to speak instead just as citizens in their professional capacity, through their political party, or their neighborhood body.

A lot of the Koran does not speak very eloquently to a Westerner. Much of it is either legalistic or opaquely poetic.

There is something endearing about people who give themselves up completely to their faith. But there is likewise something frightening about such a totality, which also is a feature of Islam.

My family are observant Muslims, but I've come to the faith through an intellectual conviction, and that's something that they've taught me. It's never been forced upon me. They've given me a very strong identity as an Australian Muslim.

There are some people that look at faith as a part of their life, and there are those like me that look at faith as the essence of their life. I look at all things through my faith.