hey said how is it that we're eating when people are are suffering out
there with the play and in his dream he addressed the issue and then he writes it in his book but
what he said was what was important is that we can't alleviate all the problems
of the world but he said everybody if they only took one person and and he
said in his case he took two people he gave two loaves of bread every day to
two families and he said if everybody did that just take one or two people
where they took responsibility for helping them those who are able
obviously he said that would solve the problems which is not to deny the importance of organizations that are
doing it much larger numbers but I think individually we can do this you know we
can really help families in need by just it's not hard to do and and I think
everybody should try to do that if they're able to it's great so we'll jump
now into our Q&A portion and of the dialogue we've got tons people watching right now and so I'm sure we'll see some
questions pour in here so if you're watching and you have a question there should be a Q&A box there at the bottom
of your screen go ahead and pose a question and we'll try to get to as many as we can
I thought I would launch with this question though Christian conservatives
evangelicals and Muslims are there ways they can be walking in step with each
other right now supporting one another right now these are two communities that maybe haven't traditionally been so
close but maybe it could be a lot closer like maybe there's more touch points between these communities then we are
then we currently realize comms will start with you do you see areas where where there could be more communication
more cooperation share interests well I think you know the Muslim community in
the 90 when when when I was very active publicly in the community was extremely
conservative and but because of the the I I don't really like the term but for
one of a better one because of the kind of anti-muslim sentiment a lot of
Muslims have been driven into the last and so now you've really seen a major shift in our community and also I think
conservatives will concur with me here that in some ways Islam has become the
poster child religion of the left because the enemy of my enemy is my
friend but the tenants of Islam are odious to most people are on on the Left
especially the extreme left so they really don't like Islam as a religion but it becomes useful and and and a lot
of the alliances out there in that community are purely utilitarian they're
they're they're not based on any moral or ethical considerations so I personally think that the the Muslims
have a lot in common with the concerns of conservative Christians because we we want to see
societies that don't objectify women or men we want to see societies where
children are protected from you know they're in the Garden of Eden for you
know 10 or 12 years and we believe they should be left there like they'll taste
the fruits soon enough so I think there's a lot of areas where people very
committed to marriage and the importance and the sanctity of marriage which is also I mean I wrote a an article on on
the abortion issue because the traditional Muslim stance on abortion is very strong and unfortunately there's a
lot of modern Muslims that are pushing this idea somehow that abortion was
permitted but all of the early classical scholars who just saw it as a heinous crime against the gift of life so in
that as especially I mean late term abortion like you know I mean as Isaiah reminds
us you know that for those that call evil good and good evil you know I mean
this is a complete inversion of reality and so I think those areas are very
important I'm not particularly I mean I'm I'm I'm much more in a kind of
Burkean view I don't really consider modern conservatives of as conservatives
to have a whole lot to do with real conservative principles and values but I
do believe that Islam is fundamentally a very conservative religion in conserving
the best it wants to conserve the best and and so I think there's a lot of areas where where Muslims and
traditional people's in the United States can ally for the good and I think
that if you know if I think Christians if they had a better understanding of
something like Garry wills is a good example get Harry wills is a is a was a public intellectual Pulitzer
prize-winner he wrote a brilliant book on Lincoln at Gettysburg he was a classicist I think a quite
extraordinary man but the somebody asked him in a gathering after 9/11 you know
is the era scholar of religion is the horror on a crazy book and he said you
know he felt ashamed that he had never read the Quran and so he actually spent
a year of his life studying the Quran and wrote a book as a Christian what the Quran means and why it matters is a very
important book but I think he came to the realization that you know that he
was prejudiced and and I think there's a lot of Christians that have deep
prejudice towards the Muslim faith and they don't know it and if you think Isis
is Islam then Catholicism is pedophilia and you know I mean or the Ku Klux Klan
evangelicals or Ku Klux Klan members I mean the is this kind of really characterisations
of a faith that had an immense impact on Christianity and anybody that studies
the history of Christian theology that reads Aquinas or read some of the the
great scholastics of the Middle Ages that were heavily influenced by a varoius and Avicenna and Farabi and
Ghazali and these are these are historical facts so this idea somehow
that a civilization that could build the Taj Mahal is a civilization of suicide
bombers I mean that's just I think that should smack in the face of anybody with
a modicum of intelligence as something that really needs to be reassessed
picking out books sums that we had a question come in for you but Eugene I
want you to feel free to jump on jump in because everyone should just read more and the question is I'm a practicing
Muslim at a potential critical time of spiritual growth with this opportunity to grow during this pandemic I'm looking
for some thought-provoking books and authors so I can increase my communication with the dead you
mentioned sorbets the Greek ivanhoe Xun what are some books that you would recommend for a layman without classic
deep training and a liberal arts education to improve spirituality and so if I also wanted to throw up to Eugene
that's pretty broad but we'll start with you have this since it was directed at you well spiritual literature some of
its been translated into English I would look into some of the books that have
been translated by Imam al-ghazali I worked with a project on gazali for
children and so we've done several books now from his but his books are a really
excellent place to start for somebody that really wants to deepen their knowledge of traditional spirituality
I don't usually plug my books but I did write a book called purification of the
heart which is available at sandala and and that goes in
to the diseases of the heart their ideologies and how we treat them
and a lot of people I think have really benefited based on the feedback that I've been given over the years it sold
over 250,000 copies so you know there's a lot of people that have been very interested in Eugene do you have any
input for this listener yeah I'll suggest a couple books and I thought I
would maybe go back to the previous question if I may as quickly as I could no unlike my new friend Hamza I don't
mind and so thou shalt not be a jerk would be one my first book is overrated
I'm not saying that it's overrated it's actually titled overrated so people can
check that out as well I love reading and suggesting to folks
certain classic Christian books I think obviously CS Lewis mere christianity is
one that I think everyone that's interested in Christianity should read any of the books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
for me has been really resonant especially the cost of discipleship is one another book that I suggest to
people is any there's an anthology of sermons and writings by Reverend Martin
dr. Luther King jr. that I recommend and then I should have read one of his sermons at least at least once every
couple weeks I think he gives a different perspective and lens then maybe our classic writers in
Christianity but I want to go back to kind of what does it look like for for
some sort of collegiality or for some kind of collaboration between Christians
and Muslims you know my fence is this I think collegiality and collaboration
are impossible if you don't know those that you want to collaborate and have
collegiality with in the Christian vernacular when we say we're called to
love our neighbors obviously Jesus summarizes all of the the codes
the commandments and says the two greatest Commandments are to love God and to love your neighbors and you can't
love your neighbor if you don't know your neighbor everything outside of that
is very nebulous theoretical theological and it's not practical it's not embodied
in our daily lives and I think this is part of the strong disconnect that is contributing to
fragmentation in our society is that we're basically speaking about issues but we don't know anyone that directly
is impacted by these very things and so we're formed by media were formed by
others who may have an agenda that might not necessarily be consistent with the ethics of Jesus and so when it comes
specifically to the relationship that Christians and Muslims I can tell you that while there's a lot of movement and
growth in my own life ten years ago I would have not known a single Muslim in
my life and so everything that I would be speaking about is simply from text books and nothing out of embodied
relationship and so I would just I know it's very simplistic about what does it look like in the future for Christians
and Muslims to work together and I know there will be some who might push back and say it's overly simplistic I think
sometimes it's the simple things that are the most profound and we've got to go back to that and so we've got to
understand when Jesus says to love your neighbors he's not just talking about those that look like you think like you
feel like you worship like you and certainly even vote like you as well I
think for those who take Christian and Muslim faith with a level of seriousness
we can all acknowledge we're not brothers and sisters in faith but we are our neighbors and our respective our
respective teaching tells us that we're called to love our neighbors so I would
begin there and I think out of that is the possibility for new imaginative
things that can take place can I just add something the we you know we had
this caravan of peace where we brought evangelical pastor Muslim Imams and Jewish rabbis together
and I think all of the Evangelic Lassard Bob Roberts was was Pastor Bob was part
of that but I got to know several I still keep in touch with some of the
pastors that I met pastor Kevin Brown in Philadelphia Stephen Messer in in in Texas I I
developed some wonderful relationships with people and I think one of the things about people that love God
however we conceptualize in and in the end we have in our tradition and
anything that the mind can conceive of God is other than that and I think that's Aquinas would be perfectly fine
with a statement like that so I think that anybody who sees the
love of God in another person has an affinity for that person irrespective of
their faith and I think also deeply died piety because our traditions call us to
piety Apia toss you know this idea of a dutiful awareness of our obligations
towards God and towards God's creation our entire religion was summed up by one
of the greatest theologians of Islam for didn't email Brasi he said all of his long could be summed up in two
statements love of God and mercy towards his creation and I think most Christians
would not have a hard time with with with that either so well as with all of our dialogues we
have so many so many good questions that we unfortunately didn't have time to get
to you but I want to just acknowledge those of you who asked questions we're so thankful and grateful that you did
and we hope that you'll continue the conversations whether you're Muslim or Christian in your own communities
whether it's online or through zoom of course Eugene probably won't be meeting
you there because I think he's never gonna do a zoom call again after this but we would encourage you to if you
know Christians or Muslims whether you know just by acquaintance or someone
that you could be connected with to ask those questions to your Muslim neighbor to Christian neighbor and see what they think this conversations really just
supposed to be the start of additional conversations down the road I mean part of why we do this is to normalize these
conversations to show that these conversations should be part of our daily lives it shouldn't be an event
necessarily to to speak to a Muslim if you're a Christian or or vice versa should be maybe something that we
incorporate into our lives but this has been amazing I'm so so grateful for you
hamza and eugene and you of course the Esmond for being here today and engaging in this conversation again our next
dialogue would they really face this next Thursday please head to where social media pages now and you'll see all the information you need to register
for that but for now we thank you for being here check out neighborly faith that org bread for the world Zaytuna
College and the me and my Muslims friends podcast which is fantastic and
that's it we're so thankful that your that you were here and we'll see you next time nice to meet you all have a
great day everyo