Interfaith discussion on Islam and pluralism

Voices for Justice and Peace, sponsored by Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, the California 501c3 interfaith nonprofit organization, which was created to support the work of faith leaders from Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Baha'i, and other backgrounds who say religious communities must stop blessing, war, and violence. Grounded in many traditions and honoring prophetic perspectives of nonviolence, ICUJP's activities promote critical examination from the faith perspective of the costs of violence at home and in the world. ICUJP members are spiritual and secular leaders urgently committed to building a progressive interfaith movement devoted to actions for justice and peace. I am your host. Stephen Longfellow Fisk, and today's program is about better understanding Islam and features three prominent members of the Los Angeles interfaith community. And that is the question. How do we want our world? Do we have a voice in making our world a better place and building a future where the culture of Islam is a part of it? Where the culture of peace can thrive? No war, no violence, economic disparity, environmental degradation, racism, and the inabilities to overcome our differences. So today our guests are Dr. Zaman Stanazai, who is a professor of mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. He also teaches political science at California State University, Dominguez Hills. As a Fulbright scholar, he has worked in Indo-Iranian languages and as a political scientist. He writes on the politicalization of ethno-linguistics and religious identities in regional conflicts. His post-doctoral studies have centered on Sufism, where his thoughts find expression in passionate prose and mystical verse. He blogs in the Huffington Post and stanazai.org. Adina Lekovec. Is a public affairs consultant with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a national advocacy organization that works to improve understanding and policies that impact American Muslims. Additionally, she is co-founder of New Ground, a Muslim-Jewish partnership for change, and is an adjunct professor at Bayon Claremont University and serves on Mayor Eric Garcetti's service cabinet. And last but not least, Islam. Al-Maryati, president of Muslim Public Affairs Council, who writes extensively, speaks extensively, appears extensively, and is deeply involved in interfaith community action. And thank you all for being here this evening for this program. Thank you. Now, we know that Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with 1.6 billion followers, and is also the fastest-growing religion, and is the second largest religion on the planet. But recently, with all the activity that's been going on, especially with this in the Middle East, the way Muslims have been stigmatized, marginalized, and denigrated needs to be addressed. Where the moderate voices of Islam are drowned out by the radicals hijacking attention in the Western media. So, in today's dialogue, we will bring forth a better understanding of Islam. Thank you. And we'll begin with Dr. Stanizai, who will give us a little bit of background as to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be with him, and with the rise of and beginnings of some of the fundamentals and basics of Islam. I see Islam as a religion along the monotheistic traditions that believes in a universal religion. And I see Islam as a universal God. And this universal God is not to be defined in the singularity, but rather in the universality, that it is a one God for all humanity. And it's a religious tradition that is also, in a sense, bringing all human societies together in a more evolutionary terms, that if in earlier periods we had religions of different tribes and different groups, and as the world is shrinking, if there is a God, there has to be one. And that has to be one for all humanity. But this oneness of God is also to be understood as much as humanly possible. And perceived through our thought and imagination as a God of a totality, a cosmic totality. Therefore, it's beyond not only the realm of our perception, but also beyond the capacity of our rational thinking to understand and comprehend him or her correctly. Well, in the interfaith community, we see that there are many names of God and in many religions, and in many religions, with many, many different approaches to the belief in God. And so, Salam, how would you address that, that if Allah is the one God, one eternal God, how do we, with all the other names, like thousands of names of God, how do we bring, how does Allah work with all those other gods? Well, like you said, it's just a name. And it's like different streams, that converge to one reservoir of water. And God is that one. But there are different branches, if you will, that manifest themselves in different religions. But they all come from the same source. As Dr. Mehrat Houth said one time, that all religions belong to God. That God is too big to have just one. One religion. And when a religion claims that they're the only ones that have God, then they're not a true religion anymore. That God becomes more or less the head of that gang. In other words, the group is acting more like a gang, as opposed to a religion. And so we have to move away from that sense of tribalism. And that's been with human civilization from the beginning. To only look at society and at the world in terms of, along ethnic or racial or socioeconomic lines, as opposed to, as Zeman said, all belonging to one human family. So the idea of monotheism is not just about the belief in one God, but that if you do believe in one God, you have to believe in human equality. If you don't believe in human equality, then there's something wrong with your notion of what God is. But it seems we get there. But it seems we get hung up on the name. We get hung up on the differences of different religions and the way they're presented. And we get to fight over the name and over the different belief systems. Exactly. It's always the superficial point that messes everything up. So for example, Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, Dios, Allah, they all mean exactly the same thing. They mean God. And it's just, for example, a Christian Arab would say Allah, because that's the name for God in Arabic. So it's not a matter of a religious differentiation. It's simply a linguistic one. Right. Adina, how would you address this particular issue? The name of God, the difference between religions. I think all religions are an attempt to understand the divine and attempt to create a relationship with the divine and to understand our own souls better. And so Islam is a continuation of other religions. Islam is considered an Abrahamic faith in the Quran. Jews and Christians are described as people of the book because Islam is a continuation of the message, or the Quran is a continuation of the message of the Torah and of the Bible. And so you'll find that what we have in common with Abrahamic faiths specifically is several core creed issues. The belief in God, the belief in the Day of Judgment, this idea that we'll be accountable in the afterlife. A belief in most of the same prophets, including Jesus, who Muslims view as a prophet, including Moses, including Adam, including Jacob, you name it, including all those famous figures that we know so well. A belief in angels, a belief in, and maybe this is where there is some distinction between the two, but a belief in the Holy Spirit, a belief in the Holy Spirit, and maybe there is some distinction, but a belief in free will, that we are ultimately accountable for our own souls, and that God will judge us according to not just our intentions and our belief, but our actions. The ability that we had to put our faith into action and our ability to translate good intentions into goodness in the world. Salam quoted Dr. Etude, and that's something that's very easy to do. One of the ways I always quote him is, he gave me the most simple definition of God, and that's the definition of Islam, which is that it's the two G's, believing in God and doing good. And I think that that's the best and easiest way to understand Islam, is through its values. That it's about equality, about compassion, about mercy, about justice. And these are the things that we strive as Muslims to uphold in the world, or to demonstrate in the world through our faith. Unfortunately, in the media today, we have a lot of words that are splashed out in the media, like radical Islamist extremist, jihad, Sharia law, so forth and so on. So maybe you could address some of these terms, which I think in Western media we see as confusing in terms of truly understanding Islam. Zaman, would you like to address that? Well, I think there is the politics of religion, and there are religions of politics. When we are dealing with religion, when we are dealing with global political problems, we somehow automatically attach a religious value to that. And I see extremism in the sense that extremism is a pattern of behavior, not a cultural trait. But what the media complains, or what the people complain about the media, is that the media is not covering it as a pattern of behavior when it comes to Muslims, rather as a cultural trait. And if we can correct this attitude that extremism is a pattern of behavior, regardless of where it's committed and by whom, then we will have some clarity there in that respect. The next thing is in terms of the word extreme. The correct understanding of extreme would be extremes in plural. Because extremism on the part of one party, when they are interactive, produces an extremism on the part of the other. And somehow we see the extremism in Turban, but we don't see the extremism in Thai and Yarmulke. And if we level the field there, and then say like what actions have produced an extremism as a reaction, then we would have covered both sides of that equation. But for political reasons or for whatever reasons that may be debated, often the action of an extremist is not focused on, but the reaction towards an extreme action is focused on. And it's then seen in the context of, not only cultural relativism, but as a cultural trait of a particular group. And in this case it happens to be the Muslims. I think also we have to look at two coins. One is the coin of hate, and one is the coin of pluralism. And each coin has opposite sides of that same coin. And so when we talk about extremism, it is the coin of hate. And in the Middle East it is ISIS, it is Boko Haram, it is Al-Qaeda, it is corruptive, there are corruptive regimes, dictatorships. And so the Muslim world is dealing with all these political phenomena. And the reality is, there's no improvement. The situation seems to be getting worse. A deterioration of any sense of central government, no real sense of pluralism anymore, everything is polarized based on religious lines. But still there are people there. There are people that are yearning for freedom, that are yearning for pluralism. And that polarization can be acerbated by military intervention. Which is the opposite side of the same coin. So for example, when you have 47 Republican senators that want war, and they don't care how to get to that point. That's hate. Now, they're not Al-Qaeda, they're not ISIS, they're not Boko Haram, but they are using the military to perpetuate their hate of a region and of a culture. And fear. Through fear. So we have to deal with that hate on both sides. And we as American Muslims are on that tightrope between being pushed by the hate from the Middle East and being pushed by the hate from political extremists here. And so while we're doing that, we're trying to articulate a narrative that counters the hate. Dr. Hassan had a wonderful definition of extremism. He said, you know, there's no theological, religious analysis to extremism. Extremism simply is when a person's heart is penetrated by hate. A believer is one when love penetrates the heart. If you allow love to penetrate your heart, then it doesn't matter what situation you're in, you will not respond with hate. You will respond with tolerance at least, if not compassion, if not trying to actually be a part of the solution. So we are dealing... The other coin is the coin of pluralism. There are people in the Muslim world who still believe that pluralism has a chance. And America is the last bastion of pluralism in the world today. It's not in Europe. It's not in any Middle Eastern government. It's not in any Muslim government at this time. But it's in America. If we can succeed in overcoming the threats of Al-Qaeda and ISIS and Boko Haram and maintain our pluralism and even enrich our pluralism, America will become a stronger nation because of that. So it's really about pluralism. Well, that's part of the great American experiment in democracy, to be able to really see that pluralism thrive in this culture. And we have a woman with us who is thriving with her beautiful baby. And it's a blessing to have you here with your beautiful baby. And one of the issues that has hit the media pretty strongly is the way it is perceived that women are treated within the Islamic community. So, Adina, perhaps you'd like to say something about that. Sure. Well, let's start with the theological foundation. So I should say about myself personally, I was raised in... My parents are from the former Yugoslavia. So I was raised in San Diego as the child of immigrants who didn't understand Islam because they didn't have... My parents were poorly educated. And my mom, you know, I recently reflected on the fact, the difference in my mom's relationship to the Quran and to Islam versus my own. She, because she was not well educated, had to rely on either her father or her husband or the imam to tell her what the Quran said and what Islam said. Versus in my generation, you know, I grew up not really understanding Islam. I understood Islam as a list of things I wasn't allowed to do. And it was only when I was in college and I thought, okay, now it's time to decide, am I really Muslim or am I going to move on? And that's when I actually read the Quran on my own. I was shocked because I too thought that Islam treated women as second-class citizens because my education about Islam growing up came through television screens and film screens. What I read in the pages of the Quran, was the polar opposite of that. Was that from the point of creation, from the story of Adam and Eve, that the Quran describes that God created one soul and from that soul created its mate. It's gender neutral. And so even from the point of the conception of humanity, we have an ambiguity that exists there, a gender neutrality. And that from there extends the idea that women are equals to men, that they are entitled to, the Quran gave women the right to choose who they wanted to marry, the right to divorce, the right to inherit property, the right to participate in public life, all kinds of rights. And culturally, the tradition is also that women keep their names when they're married, all of these multiple ways that women had equal status. And then going into the life of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who received the message of the Quran, we consider the final prophet in that line of prophets, that he himself married a woman who was 15 years his senior, and who was a successful businesswoman. And he had barely a penny to his name at that time. This was before he was a prophet. So from the Quran itself and from the traditions that we know from the life of Prophet Muhammad, that women had this equal place and that they were to be upheld. And the Quran stated no uncertain terms that women were to be treated as equals and condemned outdated practices that were misogynistic. So that's the theological base. We have to look at that on the one hand. On the other hand, we have to look at how Muslim societies have treated women. And that picture is not so rosy. The various interpretations and the ways that patriarchy has operated, you know, we could spend a long time talking about here. Two points that are important to consider. One is that the Muslim world does not have a monopoly on misogyny, right? The situation of women worldwide is pretty dire continuing through today. And there's plenty of evidence for that here in our own country. Women still make 73% of their lives. I believe it is for every dollar that men make. The host of issues that are there are not dissimilar, right? There's a lot in common. However, there are some Muslim countries, particularly like Iran, like Saudi Arabia, that mandate that a woman covers her hair or even covers her body in a certain way. That's not from the Quran. That's state-mandated religion, if you will. And these were not practices that come from the Quran. So again, I don't blame people for having being confused. Let's put it that way. Being confused between what they hear Islam says and what they actually see. What is it that they are supposed to believe? The reality is that women face an uphill battle. But there are Muslim women, not just here in the US, but around the world who are making strides every day. We've had multiple Muslim women who have won Nobel Peace Prizes and other kinds of high accomplishments on the international stage and in their own countries and who are pushing for progress. This is a situation where we need to support Muslim women as they work to amplify their own voices and elevate their voices rather than to take the usual stance of trying to liberate Muslim women. We're liberated. We just need our platforms to be raised and we need to create more educational opportunities so that other women can understand their faith firsthand instead of, again, like my mom, relying on secondhand information and being duped or being more easily duped as a result. As a woman who is involved with promoting women's rights, women's concerns, as well as the way that West perceives Islam, how are you finding the receptivity? How is your work going? I think people are hugely receptive. Frankly, I've been wearing hijab or covering my hair in some fashion or another for half of my life since I was 19 or 20 years old. And I can count the number of negative experiences I've had on one hand. The vast majority of my experiences have been where people... We talk about Islamophobia today. There's Islamophobia that's rooted in hate, like Salam said. There's also Islamophobia that's rooted in ignorance. I find that on a day-to-day level as an American that the Islamophobia that I deal with is more coming out of ignorance. I always tell the story of being in the grocery store and having somebody come up to me and say, well, why do you wear that thing on your head? It's those everyday moments or my neighbor who will interact with me in that way. And I think for the vast majority of women who, again, are making the free choice to whether to outwardly identify as a Muslim by wearing hijab or anybody who's recognizable as a Muslim. You're out there on the public stage. But frankly, I think the good outweighs the bad. Certainly, there are negative experiences and many people are having them. We face hate crimes, we face hate incidents and we could spend a long time talking about that. But I think that the silver lining or the hopeful sign is that what we know from data is that the single greatest predictor of whether somebody has a positive or negative image of Islam or understanding of Islam is whether they know a Muslim. It's a matter of exposure. So we as Muslims ourselves are the best antidote to Islamophobia that could possibly exist. Right. And that's why we're doing this program because you always find that when you meet someone and have an opportunity to interact with them on a person-to-person level, on a heart-to-heart level, it makes all the difference in the world. You know, there's this wonderful story that Sam Lewis told, Sam Lewis who was the ambassador to Israel and was one of the negotiating team when the Camp David Accords were signed that he and Sadat, or rather, Begin and Sadat would not even be in the same room with each other. And then one night there was a cocktail party and to everyone's surprise they both appeared. And then we're seeing exchanging pictures of their families and the barriers broke down and the negotiations just started to zip right along after that because they connected as human beings, as people, as brothers on this planet and they had seen the ravages of war. And they knew that there was a wiser angel speaking to both of them. And fortunately that treaty has still stood. So as we break, break down barriers, Zaman, what would you say is the path to follow in terms of the interfaith movement, which to me is one of the most hopeful movements to have emerged out of the pluralism of America. It's rather a new term, interfaith. You know, at one point it was ecumenicism, which was kind of, well, let's have the different denominations of the Christian religion have a dialogue with each other. But now we're building a bigger picture. Where the different religions are not only having a respectful dialogue, but there is actually an interfaith community that is developing. What is your take on this? I think interfaith might be a new phenomenon here in the West. But interfaith is what Quran advocates. Chapter 2, verse 285, for those of you who want to check the reference, is that in very clear terms the Quran says that you, humanity, are to believe in all prophets, all the scriptures, all the angels, and so on and so forth. This whole long list goes on. This by itself implies that the monopoly of any one particular faith is not what is recommended. That the diversity of our human nature manifests in ways that can be in a way, a, helpful to understanding the one God with multiple attributes. So just as God cannot be defined in one name, but variously speaking it could be 99 names or 100, 1,083, whatever. In the case of humanity the same thing applies. So we Muslims are in a way commissioned to be ambassadors of an interfaith activity. And I usually tell my friends and acquaintances in the Muslim community that if they are going to the same temple, the same mosque, the same place of worship, in consecutive weekends, they are missing something. I'm recommending that they should go to a different mosque, to a different place of worship, whether it's a synagogue, mosque, gurdwara, whatever. That's how we can bring humanity together. But I also want to build on a point that Idina mentioned that Muslim women were allowed to keep their names. This might appear like something trivial. But the reality is that Muslims and Islam recognize the woman's right to property, property ownership. With such clarity that a woman was not an object to be renamed when she would get married. But because she had the right to own property, she had to have all the names to which she was entitled. And this tradition that was practiced, I will give you a closer example which will be Spain to the European, to Europe, is that a European or a Spanish woman whose name even today might be Maria Rodriguez Hernandez de Soto. And a non-Hispanic person would say like, sorry ma'am, give me your last name. These were not last names. These were her names. And the reason was that if she had to keep her father's name, her husband's name, and her mother's name, so that if her mother died, she was entitled to her share of property from that. And she could go to the court and say, look, here, Hernandez is my name. And if her husband or her father died, the same thing. And so therefore, these might appear too simplistic. But those of us who advocate a kind of gender equality and all that, they are not looking at that, that the European system, Northern European system, where a woman, where a woman takes the name of her husband, is simply that old tradition of a woman being herself a property, therefore not entitled to the ownership. And as far as the idea of how we, then in the West, instead of looking at these very substantial and very important traits of the Islamic culture, we say, oh, the Muslim woman is wearing a hijab. And the hijab is nothing but, I think if I remember correctly, in the case of the Atlanta Olympics, when they found that there were two people who were responsible for some incident, the description came as Middle Eastern looking men. So for men, they could be Middle Eastern looking and whatever that means. But for women, it's very convenient. If they were wearing a hijab, that's it and no more. And I think we trivialize, we objectivize, not across the gender divide, but also across the cultural divide and therefore put stamps on people's identity. That is, for lack of a better term, shameful. Absolutely. Now in America, it's interesting to look at the roots of American democracy and those, quote, founding fathers who devised the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, were of multiple ethnic groups. They were of different backgrounds. They weren't just Christians. There were masons. There were people who didn't have any belief in any particular god whatsoever. So in a way, the pluralism of the United States was born out of a multicultural, multi-religious framework which allows for the ideals of democracy to be present here. And the question is, how can we continue to develop those ideals which seem to be greatly endangered when you look at the corporatocracy that's taking over and the war making that's going on, the imperialistic kind of aggressiveness that's happening in our world and in alignment with that kind of idea of plurality and the community, the broader community of the planet Earth, are we able to really embrace? Is there hope? What do you say, Salam? Well, of course. Yeah, of course. You have to. If you believe in God, you have to say there's hope. Only those who don't believe in God would deny that there would be any hope. But I think you have to analyze the situation. For example, for this corporatocracy, it doesn't exist unless there is consumerism in our culture and it goes from having a phone to having an iPhone 4 to now having an iPhone 6 and you just keep buying and getting into more and more debt that you don't think about what you're spending and you don't think about how you're spending. So I think religion tells you to at least reflect on that and to always have a share for those who are less privileged than you. In terms of war, let's face it, fear sells. Prejudice is rampant. Hysteria is easily instigated now. And so there's a spiritual weakness in our society in terms of understanding the dynamics between faiths, between races, between cultures. Are we at that level in America where democracy is going to prevail in the next century? And I think that is the real question. And so when we look at the Arab, or we look at the Persian, or when we look at the Pakistani, do we see ourselves... We look at the immigrants. Or are we just looking at the other? It is the otherizing of people that is dividing our society and is deteriorating our pluralism that will undermine our democracy and exactly what you're saying. It will just become a corporate culture. When is the next time we're going to have the next war? How do we instigate the economy so that we just keep feeding our sense of immediate self-gratification? And then there becomes an intoxication of power. You become completely desensitized to the suffering of other people. As they say, when a million people die, it's a statistic, but when one person is in the news who dies, it's a tragedy. So why aren't those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis meaning anything to us? Why aren't the Palestinians who are suffering every day meaning anything to us? You mentioned Sadat and Begin, and I have my criticisms of both. One is a former terrorist and the other was a brutal dictator. But having said that, as you said, they were able to make a peace treaty that by and large has sustained, has been sustained for all these decades. We don't have those kinds of leaders, let's face it. Benjamin Netanyahu and whoever, you know, on the other side, there's no symmetry of power. There's no, nothing for the Israelis to really lose if they continue the status quo. So it takes American involvement on this issue. It takes bravery among Americans in our interfaith community to stand up and say, we have to end this situation and we have to speak against the injustice that is going on. And therefore, what it requires is, it's not so much waiting for leaders to get to know each other, but it's time for peoples to get to know each other. It is about grassroots diplomacy. And I think that is what will help save our democracy, really, the future of democracy. I believe that Islam has a new beginning in America. Even though both Adina and Zaman were talking about the great things about Islam, well, that's from the past. If you look to the current situation, it's pretty brutal for women in Muslim countries. It's pretty brutal for religious minorities. It's pretty brutal for people who want freedom. So how do we reinvigorate that sense, that spirit that we found in an Islamic civilization? I believe it can be reinvigorated here in America. But we have to separate ourselves, sort of that declaration of independence from those countries, and say there's an independent American Muslim identity. And then number two, America can have a new chapter in pluralism by accepting Islam as a religion along other religions. It should not be a Judeo-Christian society. It has to be more than that. If we stop at just being a Judeo-Christian, then we are excluding billions, not just Muslims, but Hindus and Buddhists and people of other faiths. So this new chapter in pluralism is the 21st century. And I think that's the test for groups like ours, our interfaith groups here in Los Angeles. And by the way, I do believe that Los Angeles is a model for other cities. I've traveled throughout the country. I don't see the same kind of interfaith cooperation. I see a lot of interfaith dialogue, but not as much cooperation in terms of programs dealing with social justice, and service to the underprivileged, as I see here in Los Angeles. It's definitely pretty strong here in LA. I do also travel quite a bit. And one of the things that I've enjoyed in my occupation as a performer presenter is that I've had the privilege to perform and speak at numerous spiritual gatherings of all kinds. And I have really seen and experienced a rich connectivity that's brewing and that's really important to me. And I agree with you. This is an exciting development. What do you think, Adina? Well, what keeps going through my mind as I'm hearing these wise words is the wise words of the Quran, which is that in the Quran, we're taught that God tells us, we created you in nations and tribes so that you might come to know one another, not that you might despise one another. And then God enjoins on us to vie with one another in the doing of good deeds. So race for good deeds. And so I think that's a really good thing. Race for good deeds. And if there is a way forward, you asked how can we renew pluralism or recreate that spirit of pluralism that we value so much. I think we have to get back to the basics. I mean, so much is going wrong in the world today as has been talked about. But that again, we're the best antidote in that instead of waiting for others, people will ask me sometimes, where's the Muslim Pope, right? Or where are these leaders? Where are these leaders? Where are your leaders? Where are the moderate voices? Exactly. And my response is always, they're everywhere. They're all around you. But unless there's a microphone in their face, do they count to you? It's a matter of, does CNN have to dub them the moderate voice for them to be legitimate? Because I'm a moderate voice. But if you put me next to somebody who's a Middle Eastern male who has a thick beard and a long gown, and he says killing a person is forbidden and I say the same thing, do our opinions equally valid? To most audiences, they're not, right? I'm the woman. I don't look the part. That person looks the part. And so they have the credibility and I have to establish my credibility. It's not a fair fight. And that's what we're really up against. So we can't wait for this top-down approach. And we can't wait for the silver piece bullet to be found. But instead, we have to be the ones to step outside of our comfort zone and get to know our neighbors and get involved in the life of ourselves. And I think that's what we're really involved in, the life of our cities, to demonstrate not just, you know, I think Muslims spend a lot of time after 9-11 saying, well, Islam means peace. And if the 9-11 hijackers were really Muslim, they wouldn't have done this. And it's very easy for Muslims today to say, well, these people who are part of ISIS, they can't really be Muslim because they're violating Islam every day with their actions. That doesn't serve us. It does us no good to say, well, they're Muslim or they're not Muslim. It doesn't change their actions. They are ending lives with brutality and cruelty in their own homes. They're using the name of Islam. And that is an affront to me and to my relationship to God. And so I've got to step up and, you know, and be the antidote and not just present a different picture, but go out and work for the opposite of that. Yay, thank you. We have a caller who's called in. And can we hear that? Is he online? Yeah, hey, hello, Steven. How you doing? Hey, it's Melvin. Hi. Yeah. I'm Melvin calling. I'm just wishing you, hey, a great first show. And look, I've been listening to it. I would like to throw two items out for your guests to discuss, to consider. The first item, I would like for them to talk a little about the histories of the Shiites and the Sunnis. That's one thing. The other thing is I would like to ask them, how to get more Islamic involvement in the Skid Row area among the homeless. We've got a lot of Christian organizations, Jewish organizations, but not many Islamic organizations at all that's contributing to the homeless laying down there in the streets. And that was a very important part of the life of the Prophet Muhammad while he was in Mecca. You know, he was homeless for quite some time. And I would like for them to touch on those subjects. And I want to thank you, Steven, for bringing such a great show and such an important subject. Thank you. Thank you. Well, maybe Zaman could talk about the history of the Sunni Shiite. He's more of a historian than I am. But in terms of the involvement in the homeless, every Ramadan there is Humanitarian Day. That our group called Ilm Foundation and Islah, which means Restore, Renew, Repair or Reform, sponsors a feeding of the homeless and working to volunteer in Skid Row. And it's run by a great leader in Los Angeles named Omar Hakim. So he does a wonderful job. I think the problem that we keep hearing, it's not just in this issue, but in every issue is, where are the Muslims? I don't see them in the Chamber of Commerce meetings. I don't see them in our neighborhood council meetings. I don't see them in our school board meetings. I don't hear them in the media. So the reality is that we don't have that presence in civil society that we need to achieve, we need to be at yet. We are speaking. When people ask where are the moderate voices, you just need, like you said, Steven, is that you just need to talk to a Muslim and you'll realize that they're not there. There's that moderate voice. But the reality is the media only cares when there's a crisis, when there's a conflict, when there's violence, and we're dealing with American hysteria. So I think we're beyond Islamophobia now. It's a much more dangerous situation in my opinion. I think we're dealing with hysteria of your neighbor, of your school teacher, of your colleague at the workplace, where they're having questions about you as a Muslim. Like really, you know, religion is creating ISIS in their minds. And so it's our job to counter that narrative. And we attended a White House summit with the president that talks exactly about how do we counter the narrative of ISIS so that we become the example of Islam as opposed to just being what ISIS is not. I think in the historical context, the Shia-Sunni distinction is primarily a polarization of politics back in the 7th, 8th century. That may, and of course, then in the course of history, there has been a little bit of padding of alignment along one or the other. But what is more critical is not then, but rather now, where I think the involvement of foreign powers in Middle Eastern regional politics, where this polarization is manipulated, and in one country's weak, so-called, in one country's weak support the Shias, in another country we support the Sunnis, and so on. And this is where I think the problem, like I said earlier, the extremism is created. It's created by our extremist policies. And our asymmetrical warfare creates enough marginalization, radicalization of people who want social justice, who have legitimate concerns. And instead of helping resolve those concerns, instead of helping find a solution for those problems, through causality, we go to the effect part of it, we simply go and bomb them. And, you know, an individual is sitting, say, in Colorado and pushes a button, and, you know, 50 people lose their life somewhere and they have never met anywhere. And so these drones, these drone wars, they create so much frustration on the part of the people who are marginalized. And our alignment with the dictatorial regimes, which flies in the face of our claim to be democratic or a beacon of democracy and supporting democratic regimes, is that we deliberately find every idea, every concept, every word around which we can polarize societies. So the Shias-Sunni schism is one of those. And I think what has happened right now is that we had Al-Qaeda. They had legitimate concerns. We may not have liked it, but instead of solving, we bombed them into frustration. So all of a sudden we have ISIS. And what do we do now? We are not going to find out why is there resentment of ISIS, whether it's against colonial boundaries or dictators, but then we go bomb them and we think that's going to resolve the problem. It wouldn't. And if we get rid of ISIS today, tomorrow there's going to be some other organization. And that's where I think in the context of that Shias-Sunni is that we are re-employing historical distinctions in modern conflicts. And this is much, much worse. I think also just to add to that is that there's also the ideology of compulsion in the region that is sponsored by countries that are America's allies, that are not that far of an extension that made ISIS. That actually financed groups like ISIS. And so we have to admit that there's an ideological component to this. And again at the White House the president said, and he acknowledged, we can't bomb our way out of this problem. You can't arrest your way out of this problem. You have to intervene. So to us the antidote is the Islam that we were talking about. That's the antidote to that kind of extremism and hatred. And that is what needs to be given the platform to fight against it. Because war is not going to solve the problem. It's only going to make it worse. So very quickly we're running out of time. This has been a great discussion. Where do we go from here? Adina. I think that number one, we as Muslims need to better educate Muslims about Islam. You know, to talk about ISIS and some of these threats that we're facing globally, one of the things that researchers have found, including Gallup and other sources, is that these people who are actually committing acts of violent extremism don't know much about their faith. They're easily misled down a path because they have a lack of religious literacy. And then, you know, these recruiters come in and use cherry-picked quotes to stir them up and mobilize them. If they knew better, they would do better. And that's really where I see that our path is moving forward and where my interest is, is in working with Muslims so that they have a higher level of understanding of their faith and they live it. And they live the best values that lie at the core of our faith rather than being distracted and misled. You know, even just a few bad apples that are out there aren't always bad apples to their core. They can be misled if they don't know any better. Zaman. I think she put it well. I think if there is any hope for extremism there is that we have to get rid of the extremism here. And Salam said that perhaps in terms of practice, America is probably more Islamic as a society than many of the countries over there because there is so much deprivation, including the major one, which is the freedom of speech and expression. And so in that case, if we take our concept of an inclusive attitude towards the world community, I think we will be better off. And so we need the wisdom of good leaders who would do the right by us, instead of the ones who are warmongers and are interested in nothing else but regime change. I think we have to do a regime change here. 30 seconds. Well, I think President Obama is good for me. But I think also terrorists need an audience. And if we overreact, that's exactly what terrorists want. So we as American Muslims can be that reassurance for the American public so we don't overreact to ISIS, but we react to human needs in the world. And we react to the issues in the region. Right. Well, thank you all for being here this evening and for speaking so clearly and articulately about these issues and for helping us see how Muslims in this society can be such an important and integral part of what we really want to see our democracy become. And that's what we need. We need your voice. Thank you, Steve. And we're really glad that you're here. Thank you for giving a chance to the moderate voices that were not heard. And to the moderates of America. That's right. Thank you very much. Thank you.!