Episode Transcript
[00:00:30] Speaker A: All right, so thanks so much. I want to welcome Amir Hussein to the podcast. Welcome, Amir.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Great to be with you. I really appreciate the chance to talk with you on this podcast.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: I'm so happy that you're here, Amir. And I've been following your work for a long time and got opportunity to read your new book, One God and Two Religions, Christian Muslims as Neighbors. So, first, as the tradition we have on this podcast is for the author to introduce themselves. Specifically, can you speak about your spiritual and academic biography?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Sure, and thanks for that. So I'm Amir Hussain, born in Pakistan and Lahore.
Came to Canada when I was 4 years old. So my first language was Urdu that I could speak.
Came to Canada. So the first language to read and write was English.
Grew up in Canada, in Toronto, literally like kindergarten to my Ph.D. you know, and that was a moment like in 1970 in Toronto. Toronto was a very white, very British city. Now, you know, 50 years later, Toronto is this, you know, extraordinarily cosmopolitan sort of place. It wasn't that way in 1970 there. And so, you know, you stuck out as the South Asian Pakistani immigrant. Now, South Asians are. Are everywhere. They're massaged on not quite every street corner, but they're halal stores on every street corner. You know, it's a very different world in 1970. Grew up working class, grew up Muslim. And so the Muslim part is sort of interesting because, you know, there was one masjid at that point in the Toronto area, and of course, we lived away from that. And both my parents worked in factories. So you didn't go to the masjid as a regular thing. You went for Eid, if you could.
But even there, there were some issues, you know, like if Eid falls on a Tuesday, are your parents able to get work? You know, very different world than one little halal food store attached to that mosque or close to that mosque. And that was it. Now there's a halal food section in the local supermarket. So, you know, very different kind of things. So. So to be a Muslim in a minority setting was a very different kind of world. There grew up working class, and if you'd asked me in high school, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would have said a doctor.
A, because that was the smartest thing I could think of, and B, as like the child of immigrants, you had four career options. You could be a doctor, you could be a lawyer, you could be an engineer, you could run your own business, and that was it. You know, there were no other kinds of things.
And my parents hadn't been to university. Both my parents, you know, had a high school education. They both worked in. In factories.
And of course, as immigrants, you. You want something more for your children. You want your children to have a better life than you. And so I went to university. And within the first.
I don't want to say the first week, but certainly within the first month, that moment of, oh, here's a place where ideas are important.
Here's a place where you can actually make a living reading and writing. There's this category called, like, intellectual. That's a thing. You know, if you'd asked me in high school, do you want to be a teacher when you grow up? I would have said no. Because I saw what my friends did to elementary school teachers, high school teachers. It was not pleasant. You know, then you get to university. Like, wait, the smart kids run this place. And it's not just academics. It's sports, it's art, it's music, you know, Extraordinary. So within, like I said, maybe not the first week, but certainly the first month, it's like, I want to do that for a living. I want to be a professor.
And then it's like, okay, how do I do that? Well, you need a PhD. Well, what's a PhD? You know, don't understand these things. So my undergrad degree was actually in psychology at the University of Toronto. I think, like, for a lot of our students as faculty, we sometimes forget how students actually choose majors. I chose psychology because of the courses I took in my first year. I found psychology the most interesting. And so you take another course, another course, and at the University of Toronto, you have to declare a major. So I majored in psychology with a minor in English.
The University of Toronto at that point had, like, the largest English department in North America. Extraordinary sort of place there.
And, you know, you're taking courses on English literature and you realize that, oh, well, you have to know the Bible. You know, if you really want to understand English literature, you have to know the Bible. I didn't know the Bible, so I get to take a course in the Bible. But then I'm thinking back to the spiritual autobiography part. I'm a Muslim.
Maybe I should learn something about my own religious tradition. So I'd grown up as a Muslim. I tried to practice as we could. Like I said, it wasn't like it is now, where you can literally, you know, we. We have a. A masjid. We have a Masjid Masala. We have a person on our campus at lmu. That wasn't the case. You know, back then, like, we sponsor a number of iftars.
You didn't do that, you know, in Toronto in 1970. So growing up Muslim, but not really knowing much about the tradition in the same way that, you know, you could be a devout, observant Muslim. And I say this to many of my Muslim students, you know, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but, you know, in my Intro to Islam class say, look, just because you're a Muslim doesn't mean you're going to get an A in this Intro to Islam class. You know, just because you're a native speaker of English doesn't mean you're going to get an A in an English class. Because the English class isn't just about speaking the language. You know, the Islam class isn't just, oh, what are the five pillars? And did you fast this morning? Did you pray Fajr on time? You know, it's like, why do you pray Fajr on time? What's the history of the prayers? How do you understand the movement of the prophet from Mecca to Medina? What happens when Islam comes into sight? You know, all those kinds of questions that, as an observant believer, you may not know the answer to. So anyway, I took an Intro to Islam class, and that was my first chance to sit down and study the tradition. The first chance to any systematic way to sit down with the Quran and read it.
And you get fascinated in, in this kind of world. And so back to what I started with, you know, well, I want to be a professor when, when I grew up. Well, religious studies professor. What's that like? How is. I don't want to be an imam. I'm perfectly happy my religious life, but I don't see myself as an imam or anything like that. And this idea that, no, you really have to like what you want to study if you're going to go on and do a PhD.
And so the choice point here, do I do a PhD in psychology to do one in religion? Like, I switched over to the study of rel. The University of Toronto had a great program for my Master's, my, my Ph.D.
comparative program. So I looked at early Christianity, looked at Islam.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Ended up writing a dissertation on Muslim communities in Toronto. And, you know, this was in the late 1990s and was able to get a job in 1997 at the California State University in Los Angeles.
You know, so no intention of moving out of, out of Toronto. But in academia, you know, you know, this, there's so few tenure track positions. You know, if you get A tenure track position, you move. And it may literally be across the country or in this case, in a different country. And so I come to Los Angeles, this is 1997, and there's not much call for you're an expert in Islam. Well, 2001 happens, you know, with the terrorist attacks, and all of a sudden people are like, oh, you're a scholar of Islam. You know, about contemporary isl. We need to talk with you. And so, you know, before 9 11, I would give a talk maybe once every two months, three months, you know, to a local club, a Rotary club, a library about Islam, Muslims. Post 9 11. For that first six months, it was probably every two days. You know, it was. It was just astonishing. And so doing that.
And I loved being at the Cal State University system, you know, state universities of gone to the University of Toronto. Almost every university in Canada is a publicly funded university.
You see the university as this great engine of transformation. And the University of Toronto prides itself on being both academically elite and rigorous. Best research university in the country, but also this great engine of social mobility. Huge diversity of students who bring in so many students. It's one of those rare elite institutions that takes in a lot of students. Most elite institutions pride themselves on how many people we don't take in. The university takes in so many people and you put them out there in the world. So I love teaching in the state institution in Los Angeles. But every year, you know, the problem with state institutions is you depend on state budgets. You're dependent on state legislature. So every year, more students, fewer resources.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: And we had a chancellor. It's funny what you remember from literally 20 years ago, had a new chancellor that came in. You know, the state system had 23 campuses, but there's a chancellor's office that sort of oversees all 23 of them, even though they're sort of independent institutions.
And the chancellor said he saw the value of the California State University system, and I quote, as creating educated workers for the California workforce.
And I thought, huh?
I thought I was trying to create educated citizens for the work, not workers for California. Don't get me wrong. I understand that the vocational part of our jobs. Yeah, parents send their kids to universities so they will get jobs, so they will get better jobs if they hadn't gone to university. So. So I understand that part, but I'm not doing vocational training. I'm not training you how to be an accountant. I'm not training you how to be a firefighter. I'm not training you how to be a chef. I'm training you how to read, write, think. So you'll be a better accountant or firefighter or chef or, you know, whatever it is that you want to do. So I thought, okay, is there a place that is actually doing this kind of work?
Surprisingly, the place that was was the Catholic Jesuit University, Loyola Mary Mack. So if you'd asked me when I was, even when I was doing my PhD, once I finished my PhD, do you see yourself teaching in a theology department in a Jesuit university, I would have said to you, what's a Jesuit university? I don't know who the Jesuits are. Oh, well, they're an order within the Catholic Church. Catholic university.
Why would I teach in a cat. I'm not even a Christian. I'm a Muslim. Why would I be in a Catholic university? You know, Los Angeles, I love Toronto. Why would I in Los angeles, you know, 20 years later? So I've literally now been at this university for 20 years. I can't imagine a better place to be than this Catholic Jesuit university, you know, for longer than I've been alive. The Catholic Church has a declaration, Nostra Aetate, the Declaration of the Church with respect to non Christian Religions, that talks about the interaction with other religions, especially Islam. The Jesuits, since at least 1995, their 34th General Congregation, have talked about doing faith in dialogue with other religions and cultures.
And it's a small liberal arts school where we do value reading and writing and studying abroad and learning a foreign language, all the things that are being cut out of the state programs. And so I can't imagine a better place to be than at this Catholic Jesuit school. And so just one last thing, by way of finishing, you'd asked about sort of spiritual autobiography, academic autobiography, that you start as a scholar of Islam in Canada, Toronto, you write a dissertation about Muslims in Canada, then you move to Los Angeles. So you start working about Islam in America and doing that kind of work. And then like I said, 911 happens. All of a sudden the work you do is much more relevant to people.
Then you have issues like the, the, the first Trump administration, now we're in the second Trump administration, the Islamophobia kinds of things that happen there.
And so in a funny way, that there's more of a.
To talk about, to explain about Islam and Muslims in a context, whether in Canada or the U.S. where we're a minority.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Oh, that's beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing that. And I identify.
One of the things I really liked about your book was you were very open about your biography and your global Personality, being raised in Pakistan, growing up in Canada, now here in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen. So that definitely comes up, that global experience.
And I went to Georgetown myself, and Georgetown is also Jesuit University, as you mentioned. And I also identify with the idea of educating the whole person and also speaking to the heart and the soul. So. Wonderful. So maybe we could go and transition out to the book and specifically the title. So you chose the title One God and Two Religions, Christian, Muslims as Neighbors. So I'm really fascinated with this, how maybe you could explain it to the audience, why you chose it. And specifically, can you talk about why Christians and Muslims, as you know, you, you're in the field of religious studies, you've taught world religions before. And this choice of the word neighbors is really fascinating. So, yeah, please.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for that. So a couple of things there. You know, one is the book originally came out in a different version in 2006. So, you know, post 9 11, the kinds of issues that people had about Muslims, who are they? What are they doing? What are the kinds of things there? And so, you know, you put this book out there in 2006, 20 years later, you realize, okay, I need to revise this now. But half the book is the same. Because part of the book, and we'll get into this, I know, is, you know, the discussion about Islam and Muslims, who are Muslims, you know, what is the Quran, who is the Prophet Muhammad. That hasn't changed. You know, what's changed is, is the framing of that. And so the, the, the book, you know, one God and Two religions, you know, talks about the fact that here in North America, whether you're in Canada or in the U.S. the largest religious tradition by far is Christianity. You know, by order of magnitude, you know, you look at the number of Christians in North America versus the number of Jews versus the number of Muslims, you know, in Canada. Like, we know the numbers from the surveys, you know, like 20 million out of the 40 million Canadians identify as Christian. And, you know, 1 million, a little more than 1, identify as Muslim. So, you know, it's a 20 to 1 ratio, you know, very similar in the U.S. and so that's the Christian part that, you know, if you're talking to a North American audience, chances are you're talking to a Christian audience. Just because Christians make up the majority of the religious figures in North America, how do you then explain Islam to them? And the, the one God part came about because of certain sort of evangelicals in America who will say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, how can you say that Muslims worship the same God that, that we do? You know, we believe that God as Christians is, is Jesus who comes to earth in flesh.
You, as Muslims believe that Allah, you know, isn't human, that Jesus isn't God come to earth. How can you say it's the same God? And you want to say, well, you know, there's another group of people, right, who don't think that Jesus is God.
That's the Jews. And no one says Jews and Christians worship different gods because, you know, the first Christians were all Jews, you know, and it took a moment for Christians to emerge as a separate community within the larger framework of what it meant to be a Jew in the first century. And to say that no, no, no, we worship the same God now. We have very different understandings of who that God is, how that God acts in the world, the texts in which that God reveals, you know, God self to us. Yeah, very different understanding. So that's really the one God and two religions part.
The other part about neighbors I think is really crucial, especially in the current political moment. I say that, you know, towards the, the middle of 2025, where there's so much divisiveness, you know, it used to be that we were a people who took care of our neighbors.
Now we've become sort of envious of our neighbors, jealous of our neighbors. You know, why does that guy have this? How come I, how come I'm driving an old car and he' new car. How come I see like I look in his window and he's got this big flat screen TV and I've got this, you know, like we have this kind of, of, of of zero sum game that, you know, if my neighbor has something that I can't have it or somehow it's bad for my neighbor. And like, how did we get here? Like our religious traditions and this is specifically for Christians and Muslims. You know, if you look at the teaching of the Quran on neighbors, if you look at the example of the prophet who talked about, you know, how you are to coexist with your neighbors. If you look at Christianity and the neighbor, you know, there's a religious commandment, you know, you have to take care of your neighbor, not because it's your neighborly duty, but because it's your duty as a Muslim to take care of your neighbor. It's your duty as a Christian to take care of your neighbor. You, you have to, to do this and we have to understand each other. Now part of that, for me it is back to spiritual autobiography, I say to my students, look, I was born in Lahore. I grew up in Toronto. I live in Los Angeles. I'm a city kid.
The smallest of those three cities is Toronto, and it's the biggest city in Canada, you know, so I've always lived with millions of people. Like, in the city, you depend on your neighbor. You may not see it. You may be. You may live in apartments I did. Where you don't know the neighbor on either side of you, but you buy your food in a store where someone else, you know, has grown it, someone else has packaged it, someone else sells it. You get your water from a public water system that someone else has built. You know, we are dependent on each other.
We are dependent on our neighbors, but we often don't see our neighbors as neighbors. You know, especially going back full circle to the narrative that you See Now In 2025 of Muslims being the other, of being dangerous, of being disloyal, of being un American, you want to say no.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Where your neighbors, you know, and I think that's really the. The crucial thing. So. So the book really is an introduction to Islam to a North American audience, which, as I said before, if it knows something about a religion, it's about Christianity, because the majority of North Americans are Christians. And so it looks at, you know, a way to help Christians understand some. In a funny way, it also, I think, does the opposite. It helps Muslims understand a little bit about Christianity and the fact that, you know, well, some of these teachings aren't so different. Some teaching, some of them are completely different. You know, going back to the. The Jesus point. Yeah. Fundamental difference here. Like, do you believe Jesus is God come to earth in human form? Do you believe that Jesus is, you know, one of God's prophets who's very special but completely human and not divine? Those are very different. But how does that Jesus, whether you're talking about the Christian Jesus or the Muslim Jesus, tell us how we're supposed to work in the world? How do we. How do we live with each other? The fact that those stories, I mean, you have a new book, you know, coming out about the Muslim Mary. You know, the fact that Mary is this crucial figure, and we can talk about this later, you know, in both of these traditions, it's not. It's not just Muslims that have married, it's Christians that have married. And I totally said it that way, because typically, it's like, wait, Christians have Muslims have Mary, Muslims have Jesus. You know, I live in Los Angeles, and so, you know, the industry here's film and television. So eventually everyone starts, you know, doing some work with film and television. And I got interested into it in a really funny kind of way. But one of the things I was really privileged to do was to work on Story of God with Morgan Freeman.
And that was a project that Mr. Freeman himself wanted to do. Now, I don't think he'd mind telling this story. I don't think he'd mind me telling this story. He's not a particularly religious sort of person, but he's a very smart person. And he was filming a movie. I think it was one of the Chris Nolan Batman films. And he happens to be on location in Turkey, and he's a smart guy. And so on the day off from shooting, he actually gets a tour, goes to Hagia Sophia.
When you're Morgan Freeman, you get a very nice private tour of Hagia Sophia. Sophia. But they take him around and they take him to the famous mosaic, you know, of Jesus and Mary. And he says, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You told me that this was built as a, as a, as a Christian place by Orthodox Christians. Yes. Back when this was Constantinople. Yes.
But then the Muslims took it over. Yes. And it became Istanbul and not continental. Yes. And this Orthodox church became a mosque. And then the, the revolution happened and it became secularized. It was this republic Turkey. And then this became like a museum, you know.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: But why do they have the image of Jesus and Mary?
And the, the docenter guy said, well, Mr. Freeman, Jesus and Mary are important to Muslims.
And he said, oh.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: I did not know that.
And if I didn't know that, and that's like Islam 101.
What else don't I know about Islam? What else don't I know about religion? You know, and so I think for, for many Christians to find out that. And you know this better than I do, Mary is mentioned more by name in the Quran than she is in the New Testament. I have. Actually, I'll move my screen. So if you can. If you can capture this a little bit. There's a icon there that you see.
Brother Robert Lentz, who's this wonderful Franciscan icon writer, wrote this icon for me. And you can see the image. It's Mary holding Jesus.
It's a Christian icon. Except, you know, you see the, the flames on their head. Because if you look at traditional Muslim iconography, we had, we used flames rather than halos. You see the palm tree with the dates. Because as you know better than I do, you know, the Quran talks about Mary giving Birth to Jesus under a palm tree. But the sentence on the bottom, Arabic. And I didn't tell him to do this. I mean, you know, the great thing about artists is artists will do what artists want to do. So when Brother Robert wrote this icon, he has the line from Surah 4 that talks about where the angels say, oh, Mary, truly God has like, you know, lifted you up, purified you and lifted you up above the women in all the world. And you know this better than I do. You know, the Quran always used this phrase.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: You know, for God. God is Lord of all the world. Not just this world, but the other world, not just this world, but the world to come. You know, all this thing. And the fact that Mary is given a really interesting title, you know, the, the. The best woman in all the worlds, you know, using a parallel kind of thing. And if I said to my students, you know, okay, here's this line. Oh, Mary, truly, God has elevated you, purified you and elevated you above the women in all the world.
Where does that come from? Well, it comes from Luke's gospel. No, it actually comes from the fourth surah of the Quran, you know, and so I think it's those kinds of things that, those connections, again, that goes back to the neighborliness, the fact that, you know, Christians know, of course, in Matthew 25 that they're supposed to take care of their neighbor, you know, because Jesus says, did you feed me when I was hungry? Did you clothe me when I was naked? Did you visit me when I was sick? You know, if you did this to the least of my people, you did it to me. You know, well, this is what the Quran talks about, about the neighbor, the neighbor who's close, the neighbor who's far, the neighbor who's needs this kind of care, you know, like we're committed to. So I said before we're commanded to do this, you know, as a Muslim, I have to do this because this is what I'm commanded to do to my neighbor. You know, not because of my neighbor. They do this because my Muslim obligations. Same thing with my Christian neighbors. You know, if you're an atheist, if you're not religious, you can say, okay, I may choose to engage my neighbor or not. There's no other motivation for the Christian or the Muslim. You have to engage with your neighbor. You have to treat your neighbor in a particular way because this is what you're called to do. So that long answer to your question, that's the Muslims and Christians as neighbors.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I love the idea of neighbors, specifically as you mentioned that when you're teaching Islamic cities, there is the stereotype of Muslims being professional foreigners. They live in the Middle east, as you know. So this idea of neighbors, that they're actually in the north, in North America, they are amongst the largest religions and they're living side by side. And I love that point, that this idea being a neighbor is the Islamic concept as well as a Christian one. So why don't you walk us now through the book. You divide in two sections. The first part, it seems more of introducing Muslims and Islam. And then the second one, you go into specific issues of dialogue. So.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, and so, so the, so the book. And I should mention too that, you know, the, the. The book. I was privileged had the book published by Fortress Press, which is a really good press. You know, that's based out of a Christian traditional understanding, you know, of things. And so the, the first half of the book, the book is divided into two halves. The first half is really just the basic information. You know, the kinds of questions people have. Who are Muslims?
Who was the Prophet Muhammad? What is the Quran? What is Muslim? Basically, those four chapters, you know, an interesting chapter.
Who was Muhammad? What is the Quran? What is Muslim life? You know, those basic kinds of things.
Now, as I said, about half of that came from the first version of the book because that hasn't changed. Muslims still pray the five daily prayers. Muslims still fast during Rama. It's not like, you know, we've changed that over 20 years or 200 years or, you know, a thousand years.
What's changed is the framing of that, the context of that, the stories of that. And so you have, you know, the Quran desecration in Guantanamo Bay to like burning the Quran, that sort of defacement of the Quran in prisons.
You look at the images of the Prophet Muhammad at Hamline University, and they sort of controversy around that. People may be aware of the kinds of things around Muslim life. You know, how do you live out your life as a Muslim? So that's the first house half of the book. The second half of the book is the issues for dialogue, including things like violence and jihad. You know, you have to talk about, you know, violence because unfortunately, Muslims have committed violence in the name of Islam. Now. Now Christians have committed violence in the name of Christianity. Atheist has committed violence. You know, so it's not that Muslims are unique in this. I think sometimes we as Muslims get tucked into this thing. Oh, no, no. Islam is peace. Islam's rich. Peace Muslims. No, we've seen Muslims do some pretty bad things. It's up to us to say, you're not behaving as a Muslim when you do those horrible kinds of things. So those questions of, you know, violent jihad. The other question, of course, is always the question of women. You know, this notion of Muslim women as being oppressed and subservient.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Again, without giving the book away, you know, the chapter on Muslim women begins with the profile of a. A notable Muslim woman, you know, Gigi Hadid. Now, most people say, wait a minute, Gigi Hadid? Supermodel Gigi Hadid? Like Gigi Hadid who's dating Bradley Cooper Gigi Hadid? Yeah. Guess what? She's a Muslim. Guess what she's tweeted about being a Muslim. She's tweeted about, you know, her Palestinian heritage, the kinds of things there. But, you know, when you think Muslim woman, is Gigi Hadid, the first thing, the first woman that comes to mind. So, you know, it's that kind of thing. So. So the second half looks at that and then ends with.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Tolerance to dialogue and, you know, paths to coexistence, like, how do we live together, how do we work together? Because, you know, Christianity is the largest religion in the world. It's the largest religion in North America. You know, Islam is the second largest religion in the world. It's probably the second largest religion in North America. There's probably more Muslims than Jews in North America. And so we have to get along with each other in the world, but here in North America. And so the book sort of looks at those kinds of things. So the first half really just the basic, you know, who are Muslims and what do they do that make them Muslim? And the second half, you know, what are the issues for both contention, particularly, like, violence, particularly around Russian gender kinds of issues, and then how to move forward?
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I really found this, especially the second part, really fascinating because those are issues that come up in interreligious and interfaith dialogue. Violence in jihad, roles of women and men, Sufism, and then from tolerance to dialogue. So maybe we could drill in a little bit on this last chapter, because this is a podcast on Islam and interreligious studies and how to engage with others and form relationships across religious difference. So tell us what you're talking about or some of the major themes in that chapter, and maybe you could expand a little bit here on the idea of Jesus and Mary being shared figures.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, and so I think there's a couple of things there. You know, one is I was extraordinarily privileged to have as a mentor, you Know Wilfred Cantwell Smith. And Wilfred was the great Canadian scholar of religion, I would say, in the 20th century. Century, without any argument, one of the great scholars of Islam in the 20th century. You know, extraordinary figure who was born into a Toronto that was even more Christian and even more British than the one I came to in 1970.
So Wilfred decides in 1940 that he wants to learn more about Islam and Muslims. And he did something very radical in 1940.
There's probably 5,000 Muslims in all of Canada.
Relatively few, you know, in. In Toronto.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Now, 20, 25, over a million two, probably closer to a million five, you know, Muslims. When I left Toronto in 1997, I think there were like 30 massaged in Toronto, 33. Now there's so many more. You know, when Wilford was there in 1940, there weren't any. So in 1940, Muslims were the other. Muslims were exotic. They weren't our neighbors. You know, without getting ahead of myself here in Wilfred, you know, one of his last books, he died in 2000, 1999, they revised one of his books as Patterns of Faith around the World. The book was originally published as the Faith of Other Men.
And he said, look, I have to change his title. You know, the one is obvious, the one is less obvious, the men part. You know, in 1960, we could talk about men and he and him as representative of all humans. Humans, we can't do that in the 21st century. We have to talk about the fact that, oh, by the way, more than half the world is women. You know, how do we make sense of this? And what do we do? So, you know, I have to get rid of the men part, but I had to get rid of the other part because in 1960 and 1940, Muslims were the other.
You know, in Toronto, In Canada in 2000, they're not. In 2000, they're your neighbor. They're on the street next to you. And so you have to get rid of that other part. But anyway, so Wilfred in 1940 goes to the country with the most Muslims. That's before partition India, you know, now Indonesia is the country with most Muslims. And that's fascinating because, you know, we talk about Islam and one of the common stereotypes is that all Muslims are Arabs and all Arabs are Muslims. You want to say, yeah, no, a, only about 20% of the Muslim world is. Is Arab. It's a minority.
And B, half the Arabs in North America are in fact, Arab Christians. You know, and we forget about the fact that, oh, by the way, you know, these people, Christians, for A long time. You want annoy a Palestinian Christian?
Ask them when they convert it to Christianity and they'll tell you, oh, about 2,000 years ago, you know, when this guy Jesus came to our village, you know, we've been Christian longer than Europe has been a Christian. So anyway, all that to say that I love that about Wilfred, that he goes for him. It's, I want to learn about Islam.
Let me live with some Muslims. Let me go live with, with Muslims and take years to live with, to learn their languages. Like Wilford, you know, Wilford lived in Lahore for six years. I lived in Lahore four years.
Wilfred's Urdu is like the proper Lucknow deli Urdu, you know, my Urdu is like the guttersnipe Urdu. So, you know, the fact that he lived in Lahore longer than I did, Urdu is better than mine. What does that tell you? You know, kind of thing. So for him it was this no brainer. And. And he lives in Lahore from 1940, 1946. I'm expanding on this point because we all know what happened in 1947.
Partitioned independence. India gets independence from Britain.
India's partition into then east and West Pakistan. East Pakistan now being Bangladesh and India. And within independence partition, you have horrific violence, anywhere between half a million to a million people killed. Lahore, the city that I was born in, the city that Wilfred lived in, one of the centers of that, you know, and you imagine leaving Lahore in 46 and coming back in 48 and seeing the horrors, seeing the buildings that are still destroyed, the buildings that are still burnt out, haven't been repaired yet, asking for so and so and so and so, and being told, yeah, they, they were killed, they were murdered, you know, and for him, this realization that we can't do this, you know, human beings can't murder each other as Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims did, you know, in the name of God, we have to work here. So there's an imperative here. It's not just as an academics are describing things, but offering kinds of solutions here. And so that's where, Long story. That's the tolerance and dialogue part, starting with Wilfred's example. You want to learn about Islam, Make a Muslim friend, go talk to some Muslims. I see this all the time. You know, you could read any two books you want about Judaism, but you can get invited to your friend's house for Shabbat dinner. And you'll learn much more over the course of Shabbat dinner than any book you know. You want to learn about Islam yet? Read a book about Islam. There's lots of Great ones. But get invited to a friend's place. We'll take you for Jummah prayer on Friday and have lunch afterwards. We'll take you for an Iftar meal. We'll take you for a Eid celebration. That's where you begin to learn about, you know, what is it Muslims do? What makes them Muslim, you know, where does that come in? Like, it amazed me the number of people who after 9, 11, wanted to learn about Islam and they got a copy of the Quran. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's great. I think we should read the Quran. But this idea that, oh, Muslims wake up in the morning, read a page of the Quran and that's their sort of marching orders, that's just completely ridiculous as saying, oh, you want to learn about Christianity, read the New Testament. You know, because Christians wake up and read. And I'm like, have you seen the policies in this country by people who call themselves Christians? They don't seem to be following this text. You know, as I read the New Testament, granted, as a Muslim, it seems to talk about compassion for the poor and the unfortunate, the current political things by people who call themselves Christian. Doesn't seem to look at that. But, you know, it's, it's that, that moment, you know, you want to learn about Islam, go live with some Muslims, you know, and, and, and, and there's, this is not something new that I'm saying here, you know, and you know better than I do, you know, there's a wonderful hadith of the Prophet where he says, look, the person that eats with us and prays with us is one of us, you know, who, who is us? Well, do you do what we do, our, our religious obligations? Do you pray with us? Do you eat with us? Meaning do you follow our dietary rules? Well, then you're one of us, you know, like this, this is the thing I tell my students all the time, look, you want to become a Muslim, it's easy. Just say in the presence of two Muslim witnesses, you know, there's no God but God.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: And Muhammad is messenger. God, Muhammad.
And you preface that with, you know, I bear witness.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Oof, you're a Muslim now. Go do what Muslims supposed to do, pray, fast during the month of fasting, give to charity, treat your neighbors this way. Go on, Hajj.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: If you're able to, you know, it's those kinds of things. Like, you know, to, to be a, a Muslim is really, how do you act in the world? How do you live in the world? You know, what do we do there? And so I think those are the kinds of things that are really crucial. So again, back to the. The question. You want to learn about Islam, Find some Muslims, make some Muslim friends.
Not necessarily do what Wilford did. You don't live with him for six years. That may be a little much. But, you know, come to a celebration, come to a. Come to an event and do something here. That's where you really.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Understand things. So I think it's opening up in that kind of way. The other part is, you know, we often think of Muslim space as being the masjid or the massages, you know, and it's like, yeah, but there's other places. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've given a talk at a university, and it may not be in a big city, and people will come up to me afterwards, say, oh, you know, I'd love to talk to some Muslims, but there's no masjid in my town. And I'm like, we're in a university. Have you gone to the engineering department? There's probably some, you know, people in the engineering department, you know, who are Muslim. There's a hospital in this town. There's probably some Muslim doctors and nurses, you know, there.
I know there's a chamber of commerce in the town. I drove past it on the way to the university.
25 of American Muslims own their own business, you know, so you're as likely to find a Muslim in the hospital setting and. Or the university setting or, you know, in the chamber of commerce, like, doing business kinds of things as you are in the masjid. And this idea that, no, it's only the masjid, that's the sort of Muslim space. So you only find Muslims in the masjid and not the corporate boardroom or in the small business meetings or in the hospital setting or in the university.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Setting. And that's forgetting about, you know, my background because both my parents worked in factories. You know, we forget. I think I'm talking now, we as Muslims, the fact that there's a lot of us as Muslims who are the underclass. You know, people think of American Muslims as American sisters, people like you and I, academics, professors, people with PhDs, people with MDs, doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors. And yet there's a. There's a level of us who are like that. There's also a level of us who are living below the poverty level, you know, who are immigrants, refugees, working class.
And so, you know, Muslim in America may be a unhoused person, you know, sleeping in their car in Los Angeles, a Muslim American, maybe Shahad Khan, who owns the Jacksonville Jaguars and is one of the richest men in the world. Like, not just 1%. Like, when you're an NFL owner, you're not 1%. You're like 0.001%. So a Muslim in America could be one of the wealthiest people in the world or could be one of the most poor and disenfranchised people in the world. And so how do we understand. And this goes to. There's a current phase now in the state of religion. We talk about lived religion. How do we actually live this out? It's not just about text and ritual, but how is that. Actually little Wilfred was doing that, you know, 80 years ago in 1940, you know, going to live with Muslims to understand about Islam.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: I love the idea of friendship as part of interreligious dialogue and interfaith relations because as you know, a lot of times people just run to the test text. They go into more debate mode and exchange. But here, this idea to spending time with a person, getting to know them. And that's something I try to do in my pedagogy also when I teach to have them actually go to iftar dinner, you know, have them interact with Muslims through virtual exchange in the Middle east and in Southeast Asia as well. And this, this really remarkable relationship with Wilford Kenkel Smith that comes out in the book, I mean, that seems like he was a great mentor to you and really role model that, that spirit of interfaith and interreligious engagement.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah, and. And that. Nothing of my own merit, you know, extraordinary privilege. I just happened to be. I grew up in this town that was Wilfred's hometown. He taught at McGill, Seth Institute for Islamic Studies, moved to Harvard, you know, nice place to be. Ran the center for the City of World Religions, then retired back to his native Toronto. So I got to know him there and then at the University of Toronto, working with these amazing people, like, you know, on my, on my committee. So will Ox, Toby, who was like Wilfred, a Presbyterian Christian.
Jane McAuliffe, you know, who's a wonderful Quran scholar from.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Well, she came to Toronto and then went to Georgetown, and then after Georgetown, you know, went to Bryn Mawr University. But a Catholic woman who's this great Quran scholar. And then Michael Marmura. And Michael was a, you know, Anglican, Palestinian, you know, one of the greatest, greatest teachers in Islamic philosophy. Of those four, only, only Jane, thankfully is still alive. But this funny moment of here I am studying Islam with four Christians, you know, two Presbyterians, an Anglican and a Catholic, you know, who know, like, Jane knows more about the Quran than I do, you know, and so it's this funny moment of.
It's not just, I'm a Muslim, she's a Catholic, she's a Quran scholar. I am not. You know, and so there's really interesting, interesting kinds of, of things there. But just having that, that opportunity. The same for you at Georgetown. I mean, you, you go to a great university and one of the privileges that is having these extraordinary people who sort of take you under their wing and then you can sort of, you know, pass that on to the next generation. The next generation. And, and so for me, it, there's this very, you know, a clear moment for me of like, yeah, I stand on the shoulders of giants and, you know, I'm never going to write anything like Wilfred. I'm never going to write anything like, you know, Jane did with the, with the Encyclopedia of the Quran. But I can pass on her teachings. And I often say to my students with complete sincerity and humility that, yeah, I'm sorry for you because I had extraordinary teachers and you got me, you know, I ate Wilford. I, I can give you their teachings, but, you know, sorry, you're stuck with me.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: I'm sure they appreciate you as a teacher and role model and mentor. So maybe we can move to the conclusion. What would you say are some of the key takeaways, things that you want people to walk away from with reading your book?
[00:42:59] Speaker B: Well, in the book, and I don't shy away from the current political moment.
You look at the first Trump administration, the Muslim ban, things happen. You looked at.
I was so privilege, again, just nothing of my own merit to have Jack Miles write the, the forward to the book. And I've known jack for over 20 years, and for those who don't know him, you know, in the study of religion, you know, his first book, God A Biography, won him the Pulitzer Prize. You know, everyone that writes hates Jack because his first book won a Pulitzer Prize. Like, your first book isn't supposed to win a Pilcher Prize. You know, that should be like, like this is my sixth book and I don't have a pill turn out. You know, I don't write as well as Jack, but you know what I mean? Like, but Jack was just so extraordinary in, you know, writing that, that forward for me. But he talks about, you know, this book was written, you know, at the middle of 2024, you know, six months into the, the war after Hamas had attacked Israel. And, and, you know, it, it goes into Press in the, the middle of, of 2024 and comes out at the beginning of 2025, you know, right at the beginning of the second Trump administration.
And so you talk about some of the kinds of things because when that becomes government policy, when the policy of the government is to, to ban certain people of certain religions from certain countries coming into the, the country, you see this, you know, you see this.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: About Israel, Palestine and what happens there. And so again, you can't not talk about this. You know, it's the, it's the elephant of the room. So, so you mentioned some of those kinds of things. So I think the, the takeaway is, you know, how do you understand your Muslim neighbor? What are the kinds of things that might help you to, to do that? Do you have a sense of the life of the Prophet? I mean, one of the chapters I'm practiced of is, is, is that chapter about the Prophet Muhammad? Because I think, and I'm not asking you to, to self disclose anything here, but I think for, for all Muslims, there's a sense of that the Prophet is being someone within your family, you know, and, and the same respecting compassion where you may disagree or the issues, but they're your family, you're going to stand up for them and to see the mischaracterizations, the kind of things, you know, yeah, the, the Prophet that the right wing evangelicals are, are criticizing is not my Prophet. You know, my Muhammad didn't do this.
Like, do you know the kind of person that he was? Do you know how extraordinary he was? Do you know how he treated people? Do you know how he treated his neighbor? I mean, you know the story better than I do. That, that famous story of the neighbor that, you know, every day would dump garbage on him, not just on his property, but on him and you know, kind of waiting for the Prophet to do his philosophy, dump it on him, you know, and then one day, like the guy doesn't dump the garbage.
The Prophet Duke, he goes around, he asks like, what happened to him? He's sick. Oh, okay, you know, what can I do? And it's like, who does that? Like, like who, who asks after a man who's literally like dumping garbage on you? Like, you know, you look at the Prophet when he goes from Mecca to Medina, you know, that's not a pleasant thing. You're kicked out of your home home. You're exiled. Your community is saying, we don't want you here. You know, 10 years later, you're in the position of authority, you're in the position of Power. You literally have the power of life and death over these people and everything. By tribal custom, by custom, you could kill these people. But he knows that that's not going to do anything.
What's he do?
He forgives them. Think about that for a second. Think of the grudges we carry. Because so and so, you know, said this about me, that, yeah, they didn't force me out of my home. Home. They didn't make me flee. They didn't persecute my followers, you know, and what's he doing? Does this. And so again, that. That sense of trying to convey to folks, you know, and again, there's a broad experience. I'm not saying that my experience as Muslim is the only one.
There's 2 billion of us almost. There's 2 billion understanding what it means to be a Muslim. Sunni, Shia, Ahmadi, you know, Ismaili, you know, from the 10th century, from the 20th century. Rich, poor, male, female, you know, whatever. But. But to get some sense of, of, yeah, here's who we are. Here's why the Prophet is important to us. Here's why the Quran is important to us. And so I think those are the kinds of takeaways, you know, to help you sort of understand this in a way that sensible. And I think one of the things.
Proud is the wrong word. You know, One thing I'm saying I'm proud of the book is you write it at a level where people can understand it. I think for many of us as academics, we live in this world where, you know, we have to be as. As erudite as possible with as many footnotes and hopefully in Arabic and Persian and Turkish, you know, and don't get me wrong, I'm a scholar.
Scholarship support.
But this is meant for the ordinary person, written at the level of that person, so you don't need to have, you know, footnotes and things like that, you know. And again, that goes to one of my favorite things of the prophets, speak to the people, the level of understanding. You know, with scholars, we can use technical terms. With other folks.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: We can't and we shouldn't. Sometimes we do a disservice here, you know, but by not talking in a way that, that is understandable to folks and that, you know, stop here. That's one of the reasons I'm so privileged to be on your podcast, to be able to have people just, you know, sit and listen to a conversation, because that. That's really is. Is what we're doing here, you know, in the book, in this podcast, having like two People having a thoughtful conversation is terrible. Television. You would turn off a television show because it's not interesting. But as a podcast, that's exactly what makes a good podcast. You know, can you get some information out of this?
[00:49:00] Speaker A: No, you're right. And that's part of my thinking of starting the podcast, is to make a lot of the scholarly material accessible because there's so much fascinating things going on in academia within the American Academy of Religion. But for majority of people, I think listening to a podcast is a lot easier to digest and to understand. So. Wonderful. So to conclude, is there anything else you want to share? Anything specifically you're working on now that you want to talk about? So.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: So a couple of things, you know, like, and speaking of the academic side, so I'm just finishing up for Oxford University Press, the Oxford of Islam in North America. So that. That, you know, inshallah, God willing, you know, will come out this fall, and that. That'll be a nice, you know, reference work looking at Islam in North America. So doing that. And then, you know, the nice thing about the university life is the teaching. I get to teach a wide variety of courses, not just about Islam, religion, film classes. I'm starting to work on a project on religion and music, and that's a great example because we have this stereotype, oh, Muslims don't have music, or music is haram. Like, have you been to the Muslim world?
Can you understand India and Pakistan without music? Can you understand Egypt without music? Can you understand Algeria? I mean, it's different music in Egypt than it is in India, but there's music there. You know, like, how do we make sense of this? How do we understand this? And so just being able to do that kind of work, I think, is. Is really crucial.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Yeah, Wonderful. All right, great. Thanks so much. Amir Hussein.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Thank you. Privilege to be with.
