The last two months of my life have been loaded with interfaith activity and interaction, in a way I hadn’t foreseen at the beginning of the summer. In August, I went to the interfaith wedding of two people I had met just this summer, accompanied by a friend whose father is a pastor. They were able to beautifully combine both Christian and Hindu traditions into a wonderful ceremony. I found myself in India two weeks later where I had gone to visit a Jewish friend working there. In my luggage was a menorah and candles for him to use for this year’s Hanukkah.
All of these events have put me in the right mindset for my year as the Muslim Fellow at Buxton. I have experienced the ups and downs of working on interfaith dialogue at a student level in college, and I have seen the capacity of conversation to transform people’s misconceptions and prejudice into understanding. The biggest issues I saw during my previous interfaith efforts have been apathy, defensiveness, and lack of avoiding very contentious issues. All of these seem to be magnified in the U.S. public at large.
I have a few outcomes that I would love to see during my time here at Buxton. I wonder where the initial, cordial conversations will take myself and my colleagues as we struggle to explain our religious worldviews to one another. I would like to move toward understanding how interfaith dialogue is largely lead by male clergy and lay leaders and where women can be present in the dialogue, and not a woefully absent voice. I want to feel like I am being challenged on my views, taken to task for my generalizations about other faiths, and really understand what productive benefits can come out of all of this interaction.
I am definitely eager to learn more from JB (Jessica) and Adam about where they come from, how religious belief factors into their lives, and tools that they bring to the table for interfaith work. I want to learn from Doug and Kathryn about what has worked, what hasn’t, and learn more about being immersed for large amounts of time in the work of bringing different faiths together.
No religious community is a monolith. I possess personal convictions and opinions that may be altogether contradicted by some of my coreligionists. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t share an essential part of my identity with them. I am here because I believe firmly that people need to be given the space to practice their faith in the way they choose, and that they not be victimized or targeted as a result of their creed.
