and most recently Northwestern
University
he is currently professor emeritus of
history his brave book which is I was
very much aware of dr. wills before and
had a couple of his books in my library
but I found his book I actually stumbled
on it in a new-age bookstore what the
Quran meant and why it matters and it
wasn't that I was looking for any New
Age books but I whenever I passed by a
bookstore I kind of feel a magnetic pull
so I went in there and I I found his
book what the Quran meant and why it
matters it received wide critical
acclaim with the New York Times
proclaiming that wills has written
perhaps the best introduction to the
Quran the Chicago Tribune has called
Garry wills America's public
intellectual the New York Times said
he's one of our most important
intellectuals so please welcome our
commencement speaker dr. Garry wills
[Applause]
I made it
[Applause]
my dear brothers and sisters under the
one god it is generous of you to invite
me here to share your time of proud
achievement you have mastered two
cultures to advance the prosperity of
both and foster greater understanding
between fellow creatures and our shared
God the unsung heroes of most ceremonies
like this are the parents they are the
ones who first taught the graduates and
have supported and encouraged and
inspired them through years that was
certainly true of my parents neither of
them had gone to college but they were
very pleased that I was able to do that
and go on to graduate school and go on
to teach
It was as if they had done it themselves
and in a sense they had I come here out
of a certain degree of shame it was
shame that made me belatedly study and
come to love the Quran despite a
lifetime of studying religion I was
ashamed that I had not read the Quran
until the claims that it was responsible
for the tragedy of 9/11 made me start
investigating such hateful charges as I
came to know more about Islam I also
felt shame as an American
that a man who is now the President of
the United States would mock and
humiliate the parents of an American war
hero who died for this country
captain Humayun Khan who Mayans father
kids recon who has a law degree from
Harvard tried to instruct Donald Trump
on the Constitution only to have Trump
insult his wife and call him a puppet of
Hillary Clinton such ignorance is alas
not uncommon but as is not normally
rewarded with the presidency I'm I am
also ashamed for this country whose
boast has been that it supports freedom
of religion and yet it sees actions to
prevent the building of mosques or to
encourage the desecration of them this
despite the fact that the Quran says
that believers in the one God should
protect one another's places of worship
including I quote monasteries churches
synagogues and mosques you graduates
have completed today an important stage
in a project that is vital to our
country to increase the understanding of
the role Islam should play in American
life fulfilling the First Amendment's
pledge of religious freedom you
understand what kisra Khan was trying to
teach that recalcitrant student to
Donald Trump you are trained not only in
Muslim scholarship but in the liberal
arts whose aim is to know the whole
culture of the human mind many years
ago when I was a young the liberal arts
were somewhat restricted in their range
they referred especially to the Greek
and Roman cultures and to Europeans who
boasted that they were transmitting
these classics the high school I went to
offered its students four years of Latin
and two years of Greek the Greek
language appealed to me so much that I
went on to study it throughout college
and throughout graduate school and I
taught Greek for some years as a faculty
member but it took me a while to realize
that the humanities were not as
exclusively European as I had first been
taught during the Dark Ages in Europe
the writings of Aristotle the great
Greek philosopher had been entirely lost
in the West but they were preserved
studied and commented on in the Muslim
world he was not until the 13th century
that Western thinkers like Albertus
Magnus and Thomas Aquinas retrieved
Aristotle from great Muslim thinkers
like Avicenna and Avera Wiis who had
been experts in that subject for a year
for centuries before the West even
became aware of them the revelations
were so new to Europeans that they tried
to reject them as an alien intrusion in
1277 the University of Paris the
principal center of theological study at
the time the place where thomas aquinas
had been a teacher condemned
acquaintances teaching saying have made
him more an Aristotelian than a
christian just think what a shrunken
sense
their own past the teachers in Paris
would have bequeathed to us if that
condemnation of the new information had
been retained and deepened now we know
that the humanities the liberal arts
include the study of many cultures after
all humans are humans wherever they live
and if one believes in one God he is the
maker and protector and the mall Allah
and the Quran says that he sends
messages to all people all the time
speaking to them in their own languages
there were some Americans who objected
when the first Muslim was elected to the
United States Congress and took his oath
of office not on the Bible but on the
Koran few of them realized that the
Quran keith Ellison placed his hands on
was the very personal copy that had been
owned by Thomas Jefferson it is now in
the Library of Congress which led it to
congressman Ellison for his swearing in
Jefferson it turns out was far ahead of
me
in knowing that we should be interested
in all the religions of all men the
importance of this to him was such that
he listed his Virginia statute of
religious freedom among the three things
he wanted to be remembered for the only
things to be inscribed on his tombstone
they were the Declaration of
Independence the statute of religious
freedom in the founding of the
University of Virginia he wanted those
things listed and quote not a word more
close quote Jefferson in his
autobiography describes his aim in the
statute of religious freedom it was
quote to comprehend within its mantle of
protection
the Jew and the Gentile the Christian
and the Mohammedan the Hindu and the
infidel of every denomination close
quote Jefferson with his curiosity about
all things probably knew that as many as
twenty percent of the slaves brought to
America from Africa were Muslims the
Jeffersonian principle of religious
freedom was recognized in the White
House during the presidencies of Bill
Clinton George Bush W Bush and Barack
Obama in all of which Ramadan was
celebrated along with Passover and
Easter this official recognition of our
major religions is another American
tradition President Trump does not
recognize the three presidents I
mentioned all visited the Washington
area mosque during their presidency and
when he was there President Obama said
prompting laughter Thomas Jefferson's
opponents tried to stir up things by
suggesting he was a Muslim so I was not
the first you graduates have great
things to contribute to our expanding
culture and some ugly prejudices to
contradict with by your accomplishments
this day part of your obligation is to