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Greetings of peace and as we say in the Islamic tradition, assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Peace and blessings of God be upon you. My name is Usama Malik and it's a pleasure to welcome you to this episode of Cultivating Ideas, a series by the Center for Lifelong Learning at Austin Seminary. I serve in the Office of Communications and Marketing here at Austin Seminary, but I've also had the privilege of being able to attend the

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institution and graduate as an alum and serve as a chaplain in the Muslim community for Muslims who are incarcerated, Muslims who are in college and in higher education, and as well as Muslims, as well as non-Muslims and people from other faith traditions in the wider community. So it's a privilege to be here on this episode that we've titled as Towards Interfaithful Community, From the Pews to the Prayer Rugs. Though our conversation may specifically concern the topic of Christian-Muslim relations and Christian-Muslim interfaith understanding, by no means is it exclusive to that

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those two communities. But the hope is that in how we approach the aspect of cultivating interfaithful community, that it's something that could be replicated and utilized for people of any different faith traditions or any different backgrounds that go about. But this is from my own personal walk as somebody that went from, you know, went through a Christian seminary and works in a Christian seminary and works in an interfaith kind of aspect. to not just how cultivate and help discuss how we can navigate, interfaith dialogue and interfaith relations, but genuinely develop and help cultivate interfaithful community.

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So just for us as a preview of what we are going to dive into, thinking about from the lens of what is the Islamic tradition? It's important for us to be able to kind of ground ourselves in discussing a little bit about what is Islam. What do we mean when we say what is the Islamic tradition or Islamic faith?

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Who are Muslims? When we conceptualize Muslims, when we close our eyes and we think who are Muslims or what does a Muslim look like, it's important for us to have a proper portrait of Muslims and who they are not. We'll also look at the earliest encounters that Muslims and the Islamic tradition has had with Christians that surprisingly, it may be a, or to our surprise, it may be actually a blueprint for contemporary efforts in religious dialogue and interfaith exchange, and also, again, towards interfaithful community, as well as looking at interfaith opportunities and possible challenges that will come about. So before we dive into that, and probably

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might wonder, maybe you don't wonder in the sense of who the person is that is sharing a little bit with you. And you might decide this is a good time to just jump ship and hop off the recording or just like, hey, I want to kind of come along for the ride. But just a little bit by myself, as I mentioned, my name is Osama. I was born and raised in Austin, Texas.

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I had the privilege of attending Austin Seminary as a student, graduating in 2020. And while here, being the only Muslim student, it was not necessarily an isolating experience, but it became a very formative experience for me going through an institution that was different from my own faith tradition, but allowed me to deepen in my own faith and be, you know, in literally within interfaithful community and through the ups and the downs, through challenges and through successes, being able to kind of see how to this day as serving in a staff capacity, finding my place and finding my own connection with my faith in a way that has been conducive, in a way that has been relational to that which is around me.

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And it's been a privilege to continue to be here. Obviously, my pro-NFL football player career did not go past the 2nd or 3rd grade, but I enjoy photography, and my wife, Sara, and I are big fans of our furry friends. We at one point had three rabbits and now we are caring for our one bundle of joy right here, Raja.

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But we are always down for any types of nice, funny and furry animals that we like to play with. But that's enough about me. So we'll dive into what you came here for. Just a quick note.

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With respect to what you might see on the slides, you may see these little symbols or these connotations here, but the first one is an Arabic honorific that is put after the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessed be upon him, or as the honorific itself in Arabic states, It's a similar honorific that is given to all other prophets and pious predecessors from Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Jesus, to Moses. And it's oftentimes labeled as AS or the transliteration of Alaih Salam, that upon them be peace. We also want to clarify that Allah is the name for God in the Quran.

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It's the Arabic name for God, the same God of Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, the God that we know in our traditions. But it's oftentimes when you see verses used of the Quran, the translation oftentimes uses the masculine pronoun, but it's not in essence in either gender in the sense that Allah is beyond any type of gender that we have in our human experience, in our construct here.

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But in Arabic, the neuter tense, the neutral tense is also contained within the masculine. So that's why if you see a translation, it's oftentimes in, you know, Allah, he is, he does, he says, you know, so on and so forth. So just to dive in. We are familiar with this commandment that is given and this injunction of you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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But what we want to interrogate and what we want to dive into here is can we truly love our neighbors without actually getting to know them? Are we able to actually faithfully live this commandment? That's easy for me to say, like, I love this person, I love this person, but how can we truly love somebody, love our neighbors, unless we actually get to know them? And thinking about as well for us in this context and in our conversation and time together today, why does it matter that in the 21st century that a Christian scholar was one of the first people to comfort the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessed be upon him after his first revelatory experience?

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Why does it matter that a Christian ruler was the first to provide asylum to Muslim migrants who were fleeing from persecution in Arabia, the earliest community of Muslims? Why does it matter that Christian travelers were hosted and welcomed by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, not just for a dialogue, but also then given space to pray in the mosque? So why does that matter for us? And it matters because the backdrop of Christian-Muslim relations or interfaith relations oftentimes may be coming

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coming from a portrayal like this, of one of adversary, one of war, one of bloodshed, one of being on diametric opposites in terms of theology, in terms of political leanings, in terms of whatever persuasions we have, but seeing something more like the Crusades rather than seeing the interfaithful relationship and the this shared essence that actually emanates from the traditions and especially within the Islamic traditions. But we come up in this paradigm that oftentimes will pit Islam and Christianity against each other more modernly as we see Islam in the West, or is Islam even compatible with the West?

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all of these different dichotomies that are false dichotomies, but thinking about what's in the backdrop and what's oftentimes shared. But what oftentimes gets missed is how Muslims themselves and Christians have been doing this interfaith dance for quite some time. And we on this side of the history sense are just scratching the surface.

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But thinking about for over a millennia, for example, the keys to the holiest site in Christianity, the Church of the Holiest Sepulchre, have been held by two Muslim families, the Nosebe and the Judei families, that they were entrusted with these keys. And thinking about what does it mean for us to give, you know, what does that require? to be able to give someone the keys to what is not just the most sacred religious space for Christians, but for the people whose space this is. What does that mean?

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If I was to give the keys of my car to somebody or the keys of my house or the keys, whatever it might be, entrust them to somebody, that brings alongside it a sense of trust. That brings alongside it and necessitates a sense of trust. You have to know that person. You have to have some sort of hope that person is not going to just run off or do something bad with it.

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But you have a confidence with that person. And thinking about what did this mean at that time, 800 years ago, almost 1000 years ago, for these keys to be entrusted and continue to be entrusted, where these families will still open up the doors for this church to lend this keys or to lend that to somebody of a different faith.

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And it makes us think about how it is possible for us to go outside our own in-groups, our own faith traditions, and be able to establish those meaningful relationships and meaningful and trusty relationships with those outside of our own faith tradition, but thinking about what does that require? How can we get to a space like that? Because it surely is possible and has been for quite some time.

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So I always do this just to put people on edge. It's not as intimidating with the recording, but for a live audience, sometimes it is because then it gives me a chance to sit back a little bit more relaxed, but as a way just to help us retain some of our information and pass it along like what's what we'll be discussing a little bit more in depth. But just to jump in as a quiz, there's no bonus points or any negative that's going to be coming about.

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So no, pressure. But question number one, which country has the largest population of Muslims worldwide? Is it A, Saudi Arabia, B, Pakistan, C, India, D, Indonesia, or E, the USA? And

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To many people's surprise, it is Indonesia, so when we... look at the population of Muslims across the world, oftentimes we'll see the primary coverage that we see in the US where there's about 3 to 4 million Muslims that are there. We see this is the area that gets the most press. This is the area that we see in Hollywood.

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This is the area that gets the most media and the coverage. But when you see where most Muslims are, where most Muslims actually live and the largest countries. It's actually in South and Southeast Asia.

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So it's very interesting to think about when we close our eyes and we ask ourselves, what is the image of a Muslim that comes to mind? Not for us to just feel like, oh, like I'm just feel uncomfortable just describing somebody there. But in all honesty, when we ask ourselves that, when I think about Muslim, what comes to mind? Me, myself, or even the college students I work with, or some middle schoolers I had talked to,

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when presenting about Islam, or even adults, all had the same kind of description of somebody that kind of looked like me, but maybe had long dress, maybe had like a more of like an Arabic, like kind of an accent or a dress and a look or, you know, the garbs that are there. But it's very interesting to see that what Muslims actually might look like if you were to put them in the spectrum might look actually closer to somebody that might be from this part of the world. as opposed to someone that is inherently just Middle Eastern. But again, it's important for us to think about where Muslims are and what they look like across the spectrum, not just from our own portrayals.

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Question #2, which food or drink items are prohibited for Muslims? Choose all that apply. A, beef, B, pork, C, alcohol, D, caffeine, E, lobsters. And the correct answer is

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B&C, pork and alcohol. I'm grateful that beef was not on the list. I love my hamburger and being here in Texas and Austin, BBQ is king and it'd be a very hard life if it was not the case. But pork and alcohol are the two food items that are prohibited from Muslims.

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What is the central religious scripture in the Islamic faith? Is it A, the Bhagavad Gita? Is it B, the Vedas? Is it C, the Sunnah?

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D, the Quran? E, the Summati Logic? And you probably got that one. It is D, the Quran.

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Next, what is the holiest city in the Islamic faith? Is it A, Jerusalem, B, Medina, C, Mecca, D, Istanbul, or E, Nashville? No shade to my friends from Tennessee or from Turkey. Nashville and Istanbul are beautiful cities.

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They are not the holiest cities in Islam. The holiest city is Mecca, but also the city of Medina, which is another city within the Arabian Peninsula, modern-day Saudi Arabia, is known as the city of the Prophet, is also a holy city, the second holiest city. And the city of Jerusalem, also known as Al-Quds, is the third holiest city in the Islamic faith. Lastly, which U.S.

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founding father owned a copy of the Quran? Was it A. George Washington, B. Benjamin Franklin, C.

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Thomas Jefferson, D. Alexander Hamilton, or E. James Madison? This one, it was not the $10 founding father.

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It was actually the $2 founding father, Thomas Jefferson. And Dr. Denise Spellberg at the University of Texas at Austin, I believe, has a work that's called Thomas Jefferson's Quran. Talks a little bit about the founding fathers and the encounter with Islam and Muslims, but gives you a little bit of an indication that

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The awareness of and connection to Muslims or to the Islamic faith tradition was not just something novel that came about in the last 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years of this country, but something that actually has some pretty deep seats. And we'll talk about that in here in just a bit. So again, we asked that question. Can we truly love our neighbors without getting to know them?

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And for Quite some time, an orientalist view of looking at things was saying that, well, in order to understand Muslims, we need to ask ourselves, what is Islam? We need to understand what is Islam so that we might come to understand who the Muslims are. As we saw from the map in terms of where Muslims are located, we can see that that's maybe not the most accurate way of looking at things in terms of how to understand Muslims.

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We don't just go to the tradition that they practice, say, well, this is who they are, and this is like their only defining characteristic. Rather, that's one of them. But when we say, who are Muslims, we take into account all the other things, especially if they're coming from a global context. Who are all of these different folks?

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What are the different proclivities? What are their backgrounds? All the richness that comes with it, because it wouldn't be fair for us to say that, well, in order to understand Christianity, I need to, I can, I will just talk to this Christian and then I'll know everything.

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Or in order to understand this Christian person, I need to look right at Christianity and everything I need will be right there. There's A semblance of truth that might be there for each thing, but it cannot be definitive in the sense to simplify that person or simplify that tradition down to just one individual or just down to one group of people. It's important for us to be able to see the complexity and what resulted in it. And so when we will actually flip the script for this conversation, versus starting at what is Islam, we will talk first about who are the Muslims in the sense that who are Muslims, because the portrayal has oftentimes been this.

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The portrayal has oftentimes been one of caricature, has been one of racialization, stereotypes, and perpetuating of other types of harmful messaging and ideas and notions about the, what is seen as the Middle East, middle to what, east to what? You think about just even some of the namings of these places are kind of problematic in and of themselves. But thinking about which people, which individuals and which groups and which messages get platformed, which platform, which types of Muslims are put front and center

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and then what merits them getting front and center and what is the harm that comes about when we will use terms like, oh, this is Islamic terrorism, this is Muslim radicals, this is Islamic jihad, all these different things and do so in a very reductive way that doesn't ask, well, where, what caused these people to do what they do? What resulted in, you know, in maybe some terrorist attacks and other things that are just in a way, that we've labeled these, given these labels of Islamic terrorism or whatnot, what they didn't come in a vacuum. They didn't happen in a vacuum.

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But where did that come from? What was the background of this? How are these political movements? How are these, what are the state actors that are there?

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What imperial forces are they responding to or what tensions are they operating within? Rather than just saying that, why did Osama bin Laden plan 9-11? Well, let's take a look at Islam and say why he did it.

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And that was very reductive and disingenuous instead of saying that, well, what is actually the story between Osama bin Laden and, you know, the US and the Soviet Union and so on and so forth and that history there. But we don't want to talk about that because it's very easy for us to dive just into, oh, hey, let's try and look into this passage of the Quran and pull out this verse and say, that's why he did all these things. as opposed to thinking about why many of these things are responses to actually the context of empire, to the realities of so many different other factors beyond just the religious aspect. Religion provides a galvanizing element for people to come around, but by no means is it just maybe the primary factor for people to do what they do, especially in cases of political situations and instances like that.

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So it's important for us to dispel what the notion of what Muslims are portrayed as, to take a look at what Muslims actually are, especially within this country, in this context, who are not just coming within the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years, but Muslims who have been here in the United States and helped build this country since not just its founding, but even before then, who were brought to this country, stripped of their identity, stripped of their faith, stripped of their connections, their attachment, taken and seized and enslaved and brought over into the country to build this up. Then, you think about that Islam's history in America does not just start after 9-11.

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It does not just start after the civil rights movement. It does not start with just Malcolm X. It's started even before the Constitution was signed or before even the Declaration of Independence was signed. But you see Muslims in our day and age, and not just now, but even before

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were people not who only just built this country, but people who were your civil rights leaders, who were your sports figures, who were your politicians in Congress, who are your musicians, who are the people kind of coming up and about, who are in Hollywood, people who are in so many ways across the spectrum, but also people who are in the day-to-day who we don't see, the incarcerated folks, the people who are in the day-to-day, the activists that are here that, and in a diversity of range, have been a part and parcel of this country's fabric from the beginning and continue to do so as this country's history goes on. Some fast facts about Muslims. Globally, there's about 2 billion Muslims, so about 1/4 or more of the world's population.

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There's over 2,300 language or ethnic subgroups Of the community, about 85 to 90% is Sunni Muslims, 10 or so percent is about Shia Muslims. We oftentimes see these bifurcations or descriptions as like, oh, in the Western media as like, what's a good Muslim, what's a bad Muslim? These are communities of belief.

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There's groups within each that have different interpretations, but there's not a good or bad, that's a false dichotomy. But different communities of belief as well as other minority persuasions and expressions. It is understood to be the fastest growing faith group.

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because of birth rates as well as convergence to the faith. And by 2070, it is understood to have projected to be the world's largest religion. And in America itself, it's very interesting to see a very different kind of a picture, but we're having many similar threats. 1 to 1.5%, maybe up to 2% of the USA population.

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You have just under 3,000 mosques in the USA, which I imagine is changing quite a bit. So that's as the community continues to grow, so to do the institutions that come with it. That Islam originally came to America, not via 9-11 or not via the civil rights or the eras that came after, but Islam came to America and was brought to America initially through the slave trade. That currently Latinos are the fastest growing group converting.

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And we have larger, more, present kind of immigrant waves that have come in the early slash mid 20th century, from different countries that are experiencing political crisis or even just through, the boom of technology and the opportunity that is provided here. But we see much more of those influx here, maybe not so much in the last year, thanks to the administration that is there. But before then, see how Muslims coming in from a diverse stream of spaces to contribute to this country.

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So then what is Islam? If that's a little bit about who the Muslims are, what is Islam? There's a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessed be upon him, and the sum of it, one of the elements in which he shares, is that Islam is to testify that there is no God but Allah. Not to say that Allah is a separate god from God that we understand, but there is no other deity other than Allah.

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And Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the messenger of Allah, not the only messenger of Allah, but the messenger of Allah and the prophet of God in the same line as Jesus, Noah, Moses, Abraham, so on and so forth, were prophets of God. that Islam is to testify this, that there's no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the messenger. Islam is to establish the prayer, the ritual prayer, the five times daily prayer that Muslims do. Islam is to give charity.

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Islam is to fast during the month of Ramadan. And Islam is to perform the pilgrimage to the sacred house in Mecca. if it is possible that at the essence, this is what Islam is. There's much more that goes to it, but these are what are known as the five pillars of faith.

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So it's important for us, and we won't go too far into it for our purposes and for time's sake here, but it's important for us to understand when we are trying to understand what is Islam, we can't disregard who the Prophet Muhammad was. That's important for us to understand who this individual was. What is his background? What was his message?

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Because oftentimes, how the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, has been portrayed in American media and Western media has been one. And not just that, before even then, from more so Orientalist writings, as somebody who was with a nefarious agenda, was a warmonger, was somebody who, you know, came from Arabia to spread Islam by the sword and very false caricatures in terms of who he actually was and what his mission was, but the grounding of the Islamic faith. comes from not just his example and comes not just from his story, but from the model that he had left with respect to how faith is to be practiced.

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That when I read the Quran, it will say, pray. It will say, give charity. It will say, do these things. But what is the specific way to pray?

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What does that prayer look like? It's a generic thing to tell people to pray, but to the example of the prophet gives a lived depiction of how we are to then pray. And the Quran itself being the central sacred text of Islam, seen as the divine speech of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, is something that is the foundation of the Islamic faith, but goes hand in hand with the prophetic biography with the model or the Sunnah, the example of the Prophet Muhammad.

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So it's important for us to keep this in mind when we hear these terms thrown around, the very sacred terms that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessed be upon him, as the founder of the Islamic faith, as the, you know, kind of pinnacle type of example for Muslims, men or women, regardless of where they're coming from, regardless of their background, as the foundational example, and then the person who is, who's entrusted with the message of the Quran, that these two go hand in hand. But it's important for us as well as we get to know who the Prophet, Peace Blessed, was and what the Quran was, that we also get to know what the setting and context of the, of Islam was in terms of where it came from, where, what was it, what society did it come from?

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Because for many of us, when we think about, again, going back to where Muslims are, what's the majority country with Muslims, that Muslims for us oftentimes don't leave the Middle East. They're often stuck in that area or in Saudi Arabia and that they've not left there. But it's important for us to understand where did Muslims come, or no, where did Islam originate from? Where did this community

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arise. And in the 7th century of Arabia is what we have and important for us to be able to kind of locate that. I won't spend too much time on here, but just thinking about, again, in the backdrop, what did the Islamic faith come within? Where did it, you know, kind of erupt from in the sense?

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Where did it kind of emerge from? And you see that it is in a space that is literally at the intersections of empire. It is in a space that is primarily tribal, Bedouin, nomadic.

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It's in a space that, you know, you have kind of the eye of a storm almost, that there's a lot of things happening there, but its connection to the wider world is through trade, through spices, through other aspects that we see hints of in other traditions. So when you think about elements of like frankincense and myrrh, these come from the Arabian Peninsula. And these are things that you see used within the Bible or used within the New Testament as well.

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But thinking about how the connection is in this space that is there. Also important for us to think about the setting that's there beyond just the location, the context in which this society is coming about. Also helping to form what the Islamic faith is bringing. Who is it addressing?

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What is the barriers that it's running into when you see a society that it's coming to that's not just highly tribal, but highly stratified, that you have a society that has your tribal elites at the top, but you have people like women who are given not much status or property or agency with very few exceptions. You have slaves or foreigners that are given no status. There's high degree of exploitation, social and economic exploitation and high degree of inequality, income inequality, social disparity.

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Yet there's still a desire for strong ethics and values, though those are gradually fading, that there's a callback. kind of like make Arabia great again in a way where you have hospitality, generosity, chivalry, but fading as the rise of exploitation due to this growing income inequality and really unchecked type of capitalism and mercantilism. And so thinking about this, maybe not sound that foreign, this is 1400 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula, but it's kind of eerie to think about just how reflective it might be of some places that we are currently living in.

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And so it's important for us to understand this context because when we see Islam as how is Islam compatible with the Western value? How's Islam in the West? How are they compatible? They are at odds.

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Yeah, it's very interesting that Islam came in response to this, to alleviate the issues that are being faced here. But how much of this is actually reflective of what we are experiencing in a hyper consumerist, hyper capitalist society where income is kind of kept at the top and you have all sorts of things. But that's I'll get off the soapbox for that one. But just thinking about when we say there's an incompatibility

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it's important for us to understand the context because it actually shows the compatibility that is actually manifest. So some fast facts about Islam. Islam means peace or submission, surrender to God specifically, not to any one person. The word Islam and Muslim share the same root word.

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And that same root word is the parallel to the word shalom in Hebrew. So coming from this essence of salam and shalom, so of peace. The Islamic community, the, not necessarily just the religion, but it began with the revelation to the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessed be upon him, in the Arabian Peninsula. This revelation, of course, we mentioned was the Quran, or the divine speech of God, from the time of 610 to 632, so 7th century, you have about 22, 23 years.

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There's a central doctrine of oneness of God. uncompromising in the diversity of different Muslim communities that you have. This is the one central tenet that is known as the first part of the declaration of faith of la ilaha illa Allah, that there is no God, no deity, except Allah. There's an emphasis on the belief in

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the prophets and the scriptures that have come before within the biblical tradition, and seeing how, again, Muslims and Islam have not always just been stuck in Arabia and the Middle East as much as our media mindset might take us to believe, but they actually spread from Arabia to Asia, to the Middle East, to Africa, to the USA, and so on and so forth, to Australia and elsewhere. It's important for us to address some of the misconceptions. We won't go through all of them step by step, but just things to keep in mind.

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What we might hold as this is something that I thought was true, or this is something that I believed in when thinking about that the Prophet Muhammad wrote the Quran, that Islam forces women to wear the hijab, the Sharia law, Sharia law is coming. It's always the biggest fear of a lot of right-wing politicians that Sharia law is going to come about. Islam condoning violence against non-Muslims.

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Muslims not believing in the same God as Jews and Christians. And also that Saudi Arabia is the perfect example of Islam in control. It's very important to clarify, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 and Islam came in 610. And Saudi Arabia's kind of hyper orthodoxy, it stems more as like a response to and a result of colonialism more and more than it does like the substantive aspect of the faith itself.

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But just think about some of the things that we've heard here and how many of these things are unfortunate, you know, very, very, very, very, and I don't want to even call them reductive because it doesn't really come from a space of sincerity, but a very serious misunderstanding that leads to very consequential and harmful beliefs as well as actions that are taken on later. So thinking about... What are, within the American context, the roots of Islam and America's Muslims, and why does it matter for us?

00:34:10.640 - 00:34:35.760

It's important for us to name that Islam did not just come about, like I said, in the USA with Osama bin Laden, with Al-Qaeda, with like, you know, Malcolm X even just before that, with people who we will have very much see front and center in terms of depiction. But Islam came on the backs of those who were brought here forcefully and against their own will. Islam was a, you know, their identity.

00:34:36.000 - 00:35:45.280

Many of the people that were brought over are these enslaved Africans that were taken from their homes. I believe journalist Mandi Hassan had mentioned, you know, he had gotten in a little bag and forth with some folks about this that who are arguing that, oh, Islam has no place in America or whatnot, and reminding them that about one in three slaves, one in three people who were enslaved were Muslims that helped, that built this country against their own will, that came to this, that were brought to this country, that were brought before even this country came, and built it from the ground up, stripped again of their religion, stripped again of their identity, stripped of their names, stripped of all the things that gave them that connection, but many of them as scholars, many of them as people who were, who were memorizers of the memorizers of the Quran, people who were luminaries, people who were very much, you know, well-educated, and especially within the Islamic tradition, you can kind of see that, you know, these, the fictions that we kind of have here of, you know, the different Muslims that had been brought, but you kind of see,

00:35:46.360 - 00:36:26.080

I believe this is Suleiman Diallo here that he has like the Quran here. We see the name here of Abdul Rahman, Abdul Rahman right here that the writing that comes about it that you have a shared connection that is there, but also thinking about in what ways the story of Islam continue to live on in these folks and through their generations as time went on. But it was not just something that appeared in the last few decades.

00:36:27.120 - 00:36:59.640

So it's important for us to then think about. The story is 1 I'll just briefly share, but I have a painting in my, print of a painting in my office, and this always catches people off guard where they see this, it's called Prayer on a Plantation, and they see an enslaved man in prostration that is praying. And there's this writing from this abolitionist, actually, that talks about slavery and infidelity, or slavery in the church ensures infidelity in the world.

00:36:59.640 - 00:37:26.160

So it's an abolitionist writing. It's very critical of slavery. But it's so interesting to see how Islam is treated in this context, while at the same time being able to see what was that depiction like for Muslims in in the time in which they are brought against their will and now subjected to chattel slavery and thinking about how this person writes that in the year 1806 on the arrival of a slaver from the coast of Africa.

00:37:26.800 - 00:37:56.480

Jay Doherty went to the city of Savannah to buy slaves. After several 100 had been sold in lots and single, as suited the purchasers, a middle-aged man was put up on the stand who wished to make a communication before he was sold, the purport of which was he was a Mohammedan, or another name at that time for a Muslim, and that whenever the hour of prayer and other devotional duties came, he must have time to attend to them. And Mr. D, who had recently, who had lately embraced religion and seemed to be zealous to promote the cause,

00:37:56.760 - 00:38:22.640

gave the highest price for him, feeling confident within himself that he would soon convert him to the true faith, referring to Christianity. Taking him to his plantation, he built him a hut and assured him that he would be allowed the time that he required. And in addition, he should have every opportunity to attend the meetings of the Christians. He for a while attended these meetings and learned something of Christianity without discontinuing, however, his former devotions.

00:38:23.600 - 00:38:50.880

At the expiration of about a year, his master, who was intent on his conversion, asked him finally if he did not prefer Christianity, if he prefer Christianity to Muhammadanism or Islam, and if he would not openly renounce the prophet and acknowledge Jesus Christ. The slave then asked if the Christian religion allowed one Christian to hold another in slavery and their children after them. The answer was, of course, in the affirmative.

00:38:51.200 - 00:39:30.720

The Muhammadan Muslim then responded that the religion of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, peace blessed be upon him, did not allow that. The result was, and I quote, that this slave in a land of Bibles and gospel ministers daily said his prayers, performed evolutions, made his prostrations, and at advanced age died, declaring that God is 1 God and Muhammad is his prophet. that thus in our own land was the religion of Jesus put to shame before the claims of a false prophet and the poor slave preferred to trust his soul to Muhammad rather than to Christ, the tender mercies of whose religion he had been led to believe were cruelty.

00:39:30.960 - 00:40:22.720

So you could see a host of different things in there, but you see Islam as the practice of one's faith as a form of resistance, the adherence to one's faith, how important it is in that sense or how important it was for a person, especially in the position of the Muslim who was enslaved, but also at the same time seeing the view of folks who are well-meaning, of abolitionists, who hated slavery, who hated this evil, but to then kind of how they viewed the religion of Islam. And many of these views of how the religion of Islam is, of how the Prophet Muhammad is viewed, is not a far shot of what it was maybe viewed by people still well-meaning, wanting to do what's right from a social justice standpoint, but how they view the religion and the faith of Islam and the founder of Islam.

00:40:24.080 - 00:40:31.440

So Muslims in America today, it's kind of like a Hershey's kiss. I'm not saying that because Muslims are sweet, but they are. They're very nice. But

00:40:31.880 - 00:40:58.480

What does that mean when we say Muslims are kind of like a Hershey's kiss? Well, I think about when I say Muslims as a Hershey kiss in America, it's kind of like a Hershey's kiss on a crucian. When you think about the aspect of demographics, you see the age distribution of Muslims that a very young population and not very old in the sense that not very aging, so very much shaped like a Hershey's kiss.

00:40:58.800 - 00:41:28.920

And then when you have the United States, you have a population that very much looks kind of like an upside down acord or a cruise ship to an extent. And thinking about how that population is distributed, it's kind of middle heavy. It's, you know, not like a bugle or like a tornado in terms of overly a lot of old elderly folks and then no youth or no, not a very young population, but it's kind of like in the middle or so.

00:41:29.520 - 00:41:47.600

And thinking about how the Muslim population is America's youngest faith community, where you have about 60% of the population, 18 to 40 years old. You have 70% that's under the age of 40. You have about 3 to 4 million Muslims. And again, looking at

00:41:48.400 - 00:42:36.560

this population in comparison to other faith communities where the, what's your age with respect to Muslims and other Christians and whatnot, that you and Jews and Christians, Protestants and non-affiliated folks, that this is quite a bit more substantial in terms of its demographics. And taking a look at just how the US Muslims compare in comparison to the US general public, that you have a sizable amount that are elderly in the US population, but you kind of have within the Muslim population kind of the flip side of that. It's important to also see that the Muslim community is America's most ethnically diverse community.

00:42:36.760 - 00:43:07.520

When you see it in terms of the different ethnic groups that comprise the Muslim community here in the US, that it's very different, again, from what the media shows. It's very different from maybe what we had in mind when we think about who Muslims are, what do they look like, what part of the world they come from. I guarantee that we probably thought that a majority of them are either like Arab and South Asian or whatnot, but you can kind of see that the majority of Muslims are actually in the US, black or African-American.

00:43:07.600 - 00:43:43.360

There's A substantial portion that are white, Caucasian, there's Asian, there's Arab, Hispanic, Native American. and so on and so forth. But also looking at the fact that when Muslims are seen as oftentimes connotated as people from outside the West or the Western tradition or the Western society, that they're foreign, they feel like Islam is a foreign element, where Muslims oftentimes get asked, where are you from? A lot of times they might just say, hey, I'm from like, you know, Indianapolis, just like middle of America or Dearborn, Michigan, but half of America, half of American Muslims are native born.

00:43:44.160 - 00:44:04.040

and over 30% are naturalized. So a small minority are actually not citizens, but a solid amount are folks, just as, American has American cheese. It's just thinking about how you have a very different connotation from what we have in terms of our own understanding.

00:44:05.280 - 00:44:56.880

And also, Muslims are among America's fastest growing faith communities, that the U.S. Muslim population grows by over 100,000 people each year, which is primarily driven by not just immigration, but also fertility and the number of kids that Muslim families generally have in comparison to other faith groups. It's also not to throw any particular shade at, mainline Protestants, but it helps for us to deconstruct a little bit of a narrative when we see Muslims as being this monolithic community that looks like this, that comes like this, that is foreign, that fits, you know, all these different images and stereotypes. And when we see the actual reflection of the Muslim community as really being like almost a rainbow, a tapestry of so many different backgrounds and very rich

00:44:57.000 - 00:45:32.320

ethnically in terms of its diversity. The projection that we oftentimes see is something more reflective of more mainline groups or groups that are considered like bread and butter and American as much as mainline Protestants, but thinking about how the Muslim community itself is inherently generationally very diverse, is age distribution wise very diverse, and racially and ethnically very diverse. Yet this same thing is not necessarily the case in many other faith communities, such as in mainline Protestants.

00:45:32.320 - 00:45:55.200

But oftentimes the view imparted to Muslims is that they are more monolithic. Yet it's Not to say that it's not a projection, but in a sense, it sometimes feels projected because these other faith communities that say that they're not monolithic really kind of come across it when you look at the data to feel that way. Yet, you know, it's the Muslims that get the label of being like, well, that's just all the Muslims.

00:45:55.200 - 00:46:09.400

It's important for us to look at as well just think about voting patterns, that Muslims generally lean to the political left. Not, again, they're not a monolith. It's not that they're all this or they're all that. There's a range of political opinions and whatnot.

00:46:09.440 - 00:46:56.600

But in the presidential vote in 2020, you can kind of see quite a substantial portion of the Muslim community that had voted, voted pretty solidly democratic in a sense, had gone across the different demographics of men, women, Arab, black, white, South Asian, so on and so forth. But thinking about as well that how the voting patterns of Muslims are, the views that Muslims have, the connections that Muslims had in that way might be very reflective of maybe what your community has or what you might feel and what you might have not had thought the case to be because you're like, oh wait, I thought Muslims were super conservative or I thought Muslims were super this or super that. Again, what is the media image?

00:46:56.600 - 00:47:10.560

What is the portrayal? What's the facts on the ground? What are the realities? But I do want to talk about and give a trigger warning for 2024 presidential elections that are results that are ahead, because this was representative of a bit of a rupture that came about.

00:47:10.800 - 00:47:40.000

And it's important for us to address that in 2020, the election results that came. we had, again, a very traumatizing graphic for some folks, but just for us to have to comprehend what we saw in 2020 versus what we saw in 2024. And how does this pertain to Muslims? It's important to emphasize that actually in a, as headlines would show that in a historic shift, American Muslims were quite split and quite divided in this last election.

00:47:40.800 - 00:48:56.400

that many of them, like you said, they were voting pretty solidly blue in 2020, 80% onwards for most of the demographics, and thinking about how this actually had gotten split or cut in half in many, many instances, and largely in part due to the genocide that was occurring in Gaza, the, instances that were according to this, not just the genocide, but the ongoing support of the United States for really what looked like and what had been an unchecked campaign by Israel, and seeing how the lack of any type of, substantive efforts to make it stop, to put a cessation to stop any type of funding or support of this really contributed to a degree of frustration, to feeling unheard, to feeling completely marginalized, to feeling pushed into the side, and really disenfranchising a lot of Muslim voters in that sense, or feeling like they're just, their party that they had helped elect, that they had supported, politicians they had helped support had abandoned them. And so you have a divided community.

00:48:56.560 - 00:49:18.960

In 2024, where you see a sharp drop for the presidential elections in terms of 2020 and in 2024. You think about how the war in Gaza had topped the issue and concern, but you kind of see how the voting pattern had been distributed. And it's important for us to recognize this.

00:49:18.960 - 00:49:54.960

Again, the Muslim community is not a monolith. The Muslim community also is deeply connected in a way where it's not just Arabs who care about Arab issues or Pakistanis who care about Pakistanis issues, the sense of the Muslim community or the Ummah is one that is, it goes across racial and ethnic lines. Of course, there are still the nuances of biases and other things like that are in between groups, but it's also important to kind of see a collective ethic that, or a collective sense of identity that is inherent amongst the Islamic tradition imparted to the Muslim community.

00:49:55.080 - 00:50:20.720

Whether Muslims then take that on as on Muslims themselves, they would like to. But many Muslim communities have that sense. And if you go to a mosque, you may see different things that are, advocating for, the Palestinian solidarity and for other causes that we might not see, amplified within our within our setting and within the media.

00:50:21.840 - 00:50:53.840

So It's also important for us in the sense that apart from seeing the same political challenges that we might have in our families and within your communities, your churches, your synagogues, and so on and so forth, to think about what are the social political challenges as well that Muslims face, that there are many things that are being faced that are being encountered, that are areas for mutual healing, opportunities that both communities can actually grow and heal from. Think about social political challenges from Islamophobia and discrimination.

00:50:54.080 - 00:51:18.080

Think about finding welcoming and inclusive communities for developing that within mosques. Youth engagement within mosques. There's an abundance of youth, but oftentimes a lament that comes about is how do we get them connected and engaged? Building sustainable institutions, supporting religious leadership, navigating political differences, promoting awareness for different issues that come about, and also

00:51:18.880 - 00:51:51.680

make sure representation is cultivated. But seeing that many of the challenges that Muslims, American Muslims face, there are many unique ones to them, but they're not necessarily just sometimes exclusive, but spaces where there can be a lot of mutual healing. So what I want us to go into in this last portion is segueing real quick to the earliest encounters with Christians within the Muslim community, providing as a framework for possible interfaith engagement going forward as we tie up what does this look like.

00:51:51.920 - 00:52:46.000

So think about, again, how this was a, these are incidences occurring in the earliest parts of Islamic history, yet they provide a blueprint for contemporary efforts. So again, we ask that question, why does it matter in our current time and current day and age that these incidences happen, where a Christian scholar had been there for the Prophet Muhammad when he needed him, that a Christian ruler granted asylum to Muslims when they were needing a safe haven from persecution, that Christian travelers were welcomed and not just welcomed, but given space to pray and given space for dialogue within the Prophet's mosque. that the first encounter was actually one of with a Christian chaplain and how it's a model for care and relationships. You think about in the time of the prophet that in his life, again, important for us to be able to understand his life, but at that time when he...

00:52:46.960 - 00:53:15.200

became a prophet and was given this revelation, felt an overwhelming sense of, kind of detachment from the society around. Again, we describe the society. It's, you know, this unchecked type of capitalism, exploitation, running rampant, seeing that, you know, he's stepping away from this and wanting to seek solitude, wanting to connect. And when he was, would draw, would kind of, you know, separate himself from the space, he found a space that he could go to this

00:53:15.840 - 00:53:38.520

cave that was not too far from the city, but a few miles away, and just started to go there for meditation. And when he was there, was one such instance where he had been encountered by, within the Islamic tradition, the angel Jibril or Gabriel, and given this revelation. And this was not something he was expecting. So he was terrified.

00:53:38.520 - 00:53:53.520

He was spooked, and he ran back home to his wife, and he feared that he was going insane. But his wife, Khadija, took him to her cousin after she comforted him and affirmed him and said, hey, you're not going crazy. You're somebody who cares for orphans. You take care of widows.

00:53:53.520 - 00:54:11.640

You do what's, you do the good, the right things in life. Like you're not somebody that God would curse. She takes him to her cousin. Waraqa Ibn Noufal, who is a Christian ascetic monk, you know, however you want to conceptualize it, that who heard the prophet's encounter and recounting his experience, but gave him a

00:54:11.920 - 00:54:41.840

assurance and a comfort that what he experienced was also very similar to what other prophets had experienced before, and that he was not going crazy or mad. But he did not go there to be like, all right, Muhammad, let me pull the rug out from under you, but instead met this person where they were, approached what he believed to be true with what he found in Muhammad's truth, and connected with him on that end. The second encounter came with the Christian ruler, as we mentioned. That it was a model for solidarity and for justice.

00:54:42.080 - 00:55:13.760

That we think about how in seeking refuge, there was a migration to Abyssinia or modern day Ethiopia. That was a significant event within Islam because at the early onset of the Islamic mission, there's much persecution that was being faced by the prophet and his community. And so he advised his community to go to Abyssinia because the king that was there, Najashi or the Negus, was known for being and preserving the, being just and preserving the rights of minorities.

00:55:13.760 - 00:55:48.640

And despite extradition efforts by Meccans and the allies of Najashi, Muslims were actually granted protection and freedom of faith in Abyssinia, where they lived and then continue to live, even after the Arabian Peninsula became safe. The Muslims still lived in Abyssinia. The 3rd encounter with the Christian community, that there's a model for dialogue and space, that the Islamic tradition has this aspect of no compulsion in religion.

00:55:48.640 - 00:56:23.280

And there was Christians coming from Yemen or Najran that visited the city of Medina, the prophet city, to actually meet the prophet to actually encounter and to say, hey, let's kind of have a discourse here because we've come to know of your faith and we want to talk a little bit about it and hash it out. And so at this time, as mentioned, the prophet had sent letters to different communities and the Najdan Christians had sent their delegation to come visit the prophet. And so while they weren't able to reach a common ground on all theological issues, they at the end of the day, you know, were like, well, this is what we believe.

00:56:23.280 - 00:56:33.680

This is what you believe. All right, we'll take it from there. He nonetheless gave them a place to stay near their home, but he also ordered Muslims to pitch their tents and set up a space to them.

00:56:33.920 - 00:57:06.160

And upon their departure, the Christians of Najran had mentioned that they were needing to pray, that they're going to go conduct their prayer somewhere or just need to pray, and which the Prophet, peace be upon him, had indicated that his mosque, or the mosque of the Muslim communities, was open for them to use for their prayers, just as it was for the Muslims. And so it was in the sense that opening up his own space for the offering of prayers. So thinking about, as we close out, interfaith opportunities and possible challenges, areas of possible engagement.

00:57:06.480 - 00:57:24.080

As we mentioned, social justice initiatives that are there. Sacred text studies, the aspect of social justice, we think about allyship and then finding solidarity, especially for those who are marginalized. Sacred text studies are coming in the sense of coming to a word with our communities.

00:57:24.080 - 00:57:44.880

We might not agree. We don't have the objective is not going to be to agree, but to come to know one another, to build community, to navigating community challenges. Many seeing that many of the issues that we face, whether in the voting booth, whether with our families or just societally, might be very much shared. And so how can we be able to find connection on these ends?

00:57:45.760 - 00:58:05.880

Just some example topics. The Quran, the Bible, Jesus and Muhammad in the context of Christian-Muslim relations, it's important for us to emphasize this as a space where people can engage, not in a way that we might think, though. The Islamic understanding and treatment of prophets is slightly different than that within the biblical traditions.

00:58:06.240 - 00:58:34.960

Prophets are seen as revered, pious figures seen as free from major sin, but still able to make errors. And the Quran is understood to be the direct word of God, similar to Jesus in the Christian tradition. There might be a lot to learn between the two figures of Muhammad and Jesus. Comparing the function of the Quran for Muslims and that of Jesus for Christians may actually draw new insights and appreciation plus, for example, if you see recitation and communion.

00:58:35.440 - 00:59:11.920

Another thing is using the Quran in interfaith. It's important for us to be able to think about comparing in comparison of the Bible and and Quran to be able to look at how there's many related stories that we can find similar topics on. There's shared wisdoms and commonalities, but there's also notable differences while also thinking about how within the sense of spiritual care and chaplaincy that there are opportunities when we get to know what's in the scriptures, what's in our traditions better, we have a way to be able to then help the people who might come to us

00:59:12.520 - 00:59:37.520

as well as being able to expand our own theological horizons and literacy on that. Thinking about how the biography of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is also something that is helpful to us. And not just when we think about understanding the historicity of the context in which something like the Bible came about, what was the profile of like the Roman Empire? What's the backdrop in which all these different things are happening?

00:59:37.680 - 00:59:56.240

But it's important for us to, similarly for the Quran, to not dislocate it from the context of the revelation, i.e. the life and the prophet, the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad, peace was be upon him. That revelation occurred throughout his life. but it's often in response to certain events and situations.

00:59:56.480 - 01:00:42.360

And so it's very helpful to have a Quran, not just the Quran with just text and whatnot, but one with commentary that has instances provided. The study Quran is one that is a good starting point for people. But thinking about when you read a chapter of the Quran that might mention an esoteric reference, such as in chapter 80 where it says, it begins with he frowned and he turned away, or in chapter 81 where it continues that when a female infant was buried alive and is asked for what crime did she kill, we wouldn't know what this is relating to unless we actually look at the context for which in chapter 80, you see this was the encounter between the prophet and a destitute blind person that was coming, kind of interrupting a conversation he was having with a

01:00:43.280 - 01:01:52.280

a tribal elite person that he was trying to convince to become, to come into the fold of Islam, but had frowned and kind of looked away because somebody's coming in now, taking the attention, but you're on stage interviewing right now and how this was a space for the Prophet to be reframed in the context of who the focus of attention was to be on, was to be also on those who are not, who are seen as marginalized and who are seen as not being as, on the same plan, the same strata as a influential chief, but also thinking in chapter 81 that this is an esoteric reference, but it's referencing the practice of infanticide within the Arabian Peninsula, within particular tribes that would bury their baby girls as a sign of shame because they didn't want, they wanted, you know, male heirs or they wanted male children. And so when they would have a female child in particular tribes, that they would carry out a very brutal practice that Islam put an end to.

01:01:52.560 - 01:02:26.680

But we wouldn't know about it unless we know a little bit of the context there. some potential challenges that, though the Muslim community is very active and involved in causes around social justice, it's very important for us to acknowledge and name some of the challenges for many of the communities. Just fear of social, political reprisal and Zionism, amongst other things, Zionism and Palestinian liberation, LGBTQIA solidarity, that it's not that there are not Muslims that are that don't find themselves in conflict with any of these things there, that again, the Muslim thing is not a monolith.

01:02:27.600 - 01:02:55.360

There is a space that you'll find conversation, dialogue, and space for with all these different things. But thinking about how it's important for us to have in the backdrop, that there's organizations that are there for support, that can be of helpful resource. But you think about how Muslims in general very much within the community generally lean in that social justice advocacy and support area.

01:02:55.360 - 01:03:17.200

So majority of Muslim American activists support activists in their faith community building and their coalitions with Black Lives Matter. You know, you see where Muslims are evaluating to see partnerships, but again, not a monolith. So, but it's important to have a backdrop that where Muslim communities do stand and do come from. Some do's and don'ts.

01:03:17.440 - 01:03:46.800

Don't assume Muslims are not, again, a monolith. Show respect, especially to the sacred, the handling of our traditions, the handling of sacred figures. It may be one way of doing it within a particular tradition, but to be very cognizant and leaning in with respect to another, because it's not, again, just something that is a understood as like a fact, just something that's like a data point, but it's something that's very much personal to many Muslims when it comes to the Islamic tradition.

01:03:47.120 - 01:04:11.760

Being mindful of mixed gender interactions, again, many cultural practices inform how Muslims will dress, how they will observe themselves within different settings, but it's important to be mindful of how people interpret that and how they express that. And to continue to dialogue that we find that there's more in common that we have than not. So just some key takeaways.

01:04:13.520 - 01:04:32.800

Knowing with respect to how to approach the Quran, when you know how to approach it, opens your own ministry, caring for those who hold it sacred. It provides an outlet as well to those who might just want to learn more. It allows you to deepen your own understanding and faith holistically and It presents opportunities for growth through commonality and difference.

01:04:32.800 - 01:05:00.560

I don't know why I titled this Knowing How to Approach the Quran, but I feel like this also is in how to approach the Muslim community in a sense of how it expands our own horizons. And also thinking about, this was specifically within the context of the Quran, that when this ends up being lower hanging fruit that is there, but the Quran is not a traditional look like the, but it's more like the Psalms and the Proverbs. And in metaphor as well, that the Muslim community is not like a traditional community.

01:05:00.560 - 01:05:31.280

It's not like just your neighbors down the street that are just like, feel more monolithic or it's just as ordinary as this. But In many contexts, you want to understand the backdrop, just like when you're looking at the Quran, not just taking it just for the surface level, because it's your first exposure to it, or you don't have much familiarity with it, do so with the commentary, do so with the context, go line by line, have multiple translations, have the understanding of where people are coming from. and then have somebody to walk alongside you in that sense.

01:05:31.280 - 01:05:50.640

And on that note, we kind of close that with this chapter of the Quran, or the verse of the Quran, that verily, in the remembrance of God, do hearts find rest. And I hope that this has been of benefit, but my contact is here for you all. I pray that this has been of benefit. And if there's any shortcomings, it's for me.

01:05:50.640 - 01:06:02.240

If there's any good things that have come from this, it's from God alone. And so I appreciate the time and space and for the Center for Lifelong Learning at Austin Seminary for providing. this opportunity. Thank you so much.

01:06:02.560 - 01:06:08.000

Thank you so much. Peace and blessings be upon you.