NOW interview (2002)
Context: Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Qur'an praises all the great prophets of the past. That Mohammed didn't believe he had come to found a new religion to which everybody had to convert, but he was just the prophet sent to the Arabs, who hadn't had a prophet before, and left out of the divine plan. There's a story where Mohammed makes a sacred flight from Mecca to Jerusalem, to the Temple Mount. And there he is greeted by all the great prophets of the past. And he ascends to the divine throne, speaking to the prophets like Jesus and Aaron, Moses, he takes advice from Moses, and finally encounters Abraham at the threshold of the divine sphere. This story of the flight of Mohammed and the ascent to the divine throne is the paradigm, the archetype of Muslim spirituality. It reflects the ascent that every Muslim must make to God and the Sufis... the mystical branch of Islam, the Sufi movement, insisted that when you had encountered God, you were neither a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim. You were at home equally in a synagogue, a mosque, a temple or a church, because all rightly guided religion comes from God, and a man of God, once he's glimpsed the divine, has left these man-made distinctions behind.
Cribratio Alkorani (Sifting the Qur'an)
Vol. I, Ch. 7: Of the Eleventh Horn of Daniel's Fourth Beast
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: Now Daniel, considered the horns, and behold there came up among them another horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things,—and his look was more stout than his fellows,—and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them... and speak great words against the most High, and wear out the saints, and think to change times and laws... By its eyes it was a Seer; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws, it was a Prophet as well as a King. And such a Seer, a Prophet and a King, is the Church of Rome. A Seer, Επισκοπος, is a Bishop in the literal sense of the word; and this Church claims the universal Bishopric. With his mouth he gives laws to kings and nations as an Oracle; and pretends to Infallibility, and that his dictates are binding to the whole world; which is to be a Prophet in the highest degree.
“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”
III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)
The 4th Branch
Albums, Revolutionary Vol. 2 (2003)
“Let me tell you one or two things about Islam.”
2010s
Source: As quoted in "Notable & Quotable" https://web.archive.org/web/20150113053714/http://www.friesian.com/ISLAM.HTM#phobia (23 November 2014), The Wall Street Journal.
Wesley quoting his own sermon on "The Circumcision of the Heart" (1 January 1733) in the work A Plain Account Of Christian Perfection (Edition of 1777)
General sources
