this week, ranya tabari idliby and her latest book, "burqas, baseball and apple pie" being muslim in america. in it, the co-author of the faith club discusses her attempts to assimilate into u.s. culture while confronting those americans who fear her family because of their faith and fellow muslims who she says distort islam. the program is about an hour. >> host: most people when they look at you would not think that you are palestinian because we have this image that conjures up in our mind when we think about muslims. where'd you come from? >> guest: not only do they not

know that i am palestinian and often i'm told you don't look like a muslim so it's sort of a double whammy that way. originally my father is from tiberius and he left around 1948 he came to the states as a 16-year-old in the 1950s and landed in chicago and ended up majoring in engineering and graduated from the university of illinois, champaign. and, my mother is from -- and she was very young in 1948 and her father was a civil engineer. he ended up being employed in kuwait and so my background if you will has my father going back to the oil-rich gulf states seeking a job as a young man at around the age of 26 or 27 meeting my mother in kuwait and starting a family. i also grew up in dubai.

>> host: so they didn't have an arranged marriage? >> guest: oh not at all. in fact he has a civil engineer was working on a home and he would watch her going in and out of the house often and he fell in love with her. so yes, they were eventually introduced by mutual friend. >> host: and then you came to america and obviously you went to school here. what was that like? your whole journey has been of a palestinian muslim living in america. well was that like? >> guest: i permanently arrived at the age of 16 but prior to that my father had bought a small home in cambridge so i grew up watching reruns of i love lucy and i dream of jeannie and father knows best. i was quite familiar with the

american experience in terms of its cultural, the cultural aspect of it. when i finally ended up at georgetown university i fell in love with the american dream. i fell in love with our founding fathers because as someone who as a palestinian i never did really enjoy the security of absolute citizenship so we were very much at the whim of working with permanent visas. i very much to do hard the values of the american dream and the protection it affords its most recent immigrants. it's been a love story since. >> host: you must have fallen in love with your husband because she married sammy. >> guest: that is true true. befell them up when we met at the washington harbor. >> host: you weren't arranged to be married. >> guest: no, no one in my family has been arranged.

it's not a tradition. in fact very few women i can identify has. my grandmother slam in late tiberius so we come from all long line of progressive muslim women. >> host: i'm trying to do this examination of your life to see how did you go from being a typical immigrant coming to this country, going to school, falling in love and having two beautiful children, living in manhattan and wonderful life and all of a sudden you are writing books. what was the inspiration? would have been? >> guest: i was more political than religious. i feel like before 9/11 i would call us accidental muslims because ultimately i think many of us are perhaps of a certain religion through an accident of earth and i think what 9/11 did

was and i'm not alone that way, i think it did that too many american muslims, it's sort of forces you to grapple with the notion of what it means to be american. saddam after 9/11 was on travel and every pundit on tv was an expert suddenly and we were told that you can't be a woman and a muslim. you need to be liberated and the violence in islam was inherent to the ideology of islam. there was a lot coming at me and as the mother of a toddler at the time and it to children, when my daughter started kindergarten a very wet much was worried about the future of my children as american muslims have i felt well if being muslim is just a label or something we are as a family because of an ancestral loyalty, then why put them through that challenge? it had to be more and hence the

beginning of this journey. >> host: so, the terrorists blow up two beautiful buildings in our city, our state, our country and what is the impact on a person like you who is living a comfortable life in manhattan? what impact does that have on you and what do you think about those people? or the audience who is listening that barely ever get to hear from people like you. would you tell us what you think of these terrorists and how you think they have affected your life? the. >> guest: well, first and foremost it affected the lives of the people they took away so savagely that day. from my perspective, my own personal perspective coming at it from a muslim, the pain of those lost to the terror that day, the morning that we were all joined together is

compounded by another challenge which is by virtue of calling ourselves muslims we were guilty by association. so that was heart wrenchingly difficult and as a mother even more so as we grappled with trying to make sense of it all for two very innocent children. >> host: your son was wiped? >> guest: he was only three and my daughter was just beginning kindergarten. i remember sadly that her first day at school was actually the morning of 9/11, the first official day of kindergarten and i read about this in the book, or ipec a -- in her backpack is sort of a spiritual kind of protect my daughter thing. >> host: that's like christians carrying a cross for protection. >> guest: it was a big oversized backpack with a tiny

koran and as i watched the images of the horror of that day, the buildings going up in flames and thinking that the thing that i had packed had so lovingly in my daughter's backpack was in used to wreak havoc and hate and destruction and the juxtaposition of those two realities was mindnumbing and confusing at a very existential level, at a parenting level. and so the journey has been for me a journey of learning and of owning my religion and understanding the issues and empowering my children. we can teach our children as american-muslim parents to disassociate and disengage and say, and i'm told this is also true to the jewish experience. when you have stereotypes out there and you are trying to develop your identity in

opposition to a stereotype you can say well you know i'm not quite muslim. >> host: a lot of people are changing their names right now. a lot of people are shying away from celebrating or doing ramadan in the office. people are closing up their identities. >> guest: that's a natural reaction and said very difficult journey but it's one that i hope they make do not know that i've made the right choice but i think i have. i do feel like by taking my children along on this journey and insisting that they not exist because ultimately the choice is theirs but i do take them along as we learn together and slowly they have chosen to self-identify as muslims too. i think that by doing that i hope that they can hold america accountable to its higher ideals

as they can hold islam accountable to its higher ideals, that they become living embodiments of what it means to be truly american and muslim and can be agents of change. >> host: i find it extremely profound that you chose to do this with your life because many people you know there are two types of people, people of conscience who take it upon themselves to create a change and you have not only written a prior book called the faith club which was very popular all over the united states. i remember every time i would lecture there was some little old lady who comes out and says, the faith club. i think you are mentioned in the faith club. that was one book that you wrote about three women coming together to explore their faith and now you have written this new book which is sort of more like muslims self-examining. i love the title of the book. "burqas, baseball and apple pie" when i got this i was like what

is she trying to say? so tell us, what are you trying to convey to americans who are listening right now? >> guest: some people took issue with the title because they thought somehow, somehow the. would kind of compound the stereotype that islam is about burkas. i think it's catchy the way it sounds. the truth of the matter is we speak about all those elements and if it's a metaphor for what evil may associate with islam positively or negatively then it's an issue that idea with. you are right when you say my issue started way back with the faith club and the faith club became such a gift for me, blessing because it took me all over the country from the mountains of lazy idaho to the shores of jacksonville florida.

i fell in love with america all over again and america became virtually a faith club to me. people are so eager to learn. most people don't have the opportunity to meet a muslim in person. they only have them headline news to go by or they don't have a neighbor who is a muslim and so it was just such a gift amp up to which is the one, "burqas, baseball and apple pie" is definitely something in which i have taken the mayor and held it up as a muslim from within. i have taken the issues that i think will be challenging for my children as they mature as self-identifying american muslims. i didn't want the issues just to be ones that are islam and the abraham faith. this is part two which is a

continuation of journey that i started. >> host: as i was reading it i saw two ways. i saw this trying to take back the soul of islam but also to take back the soul of the united states. there are some profound things that happen in this book that you talk about, some of the experiences with your children that have prepared -- propelled your children to take action and for you to take action and we will talk about that a little bit later on and we'll go into details. there's something you mentioned the book. you suffer from church and temple identity. explain that to me. i'm very curious what you mean by that. >> guest: that is a difficult one but yes, at the time when i made that statement, of course i had members of their respective temples and churches and in times of pain and distress they

have the solace of a community and a place to worship, a place to have their children be introduced to the fundamentals of their religion or a place to just celebrate holidays and come together as a community to confirm their identity and as part of a community of faithful and spiritual people. and yes, there are mosques in new york city. to understand my -- you have to understand that we are definitely secular muslims. we are progressive muslims so i made it a place of worship where we didn't sort of stick out as a sore thumb. we are first and foremost americans and i think that. >> host: so an institution the essentials of the faith but also with the cultural expression.

>> guest: we are not the most recent of immigrants and so you now and so, and, and yes, a place where just -- >> host: that the equivalent of the jcc or a ymca. let's go to that specific and you mentioned the book which i found to be really moving. you talk about the experience of a community center downtown. as you know i was involved with it so full disclosure to the audience. and you know you are asked to come to the community board meeting and then describe the feeling that you left with that day of what you saw in the room and you were an integrated american standing up there knowing that the children needed a home and you were coming to speak about it. what did you leave with that day and describe that scene that you describe in this book.

i would love for you to tell this audience that are listening to you right now, what was that feeling like? >> guest: it was rattling. it was tangible vilification i think. to be on the receiving end is, of that type of emotion is never a pleasant experience. what was going through my head was oh my goodness, we are not the only community to have experienced these feelings of intense negative stereotyping and vilification. just for us other minorities have had that. i really felt, i couldn't help but take it personally. it's a scary feeling and yes, we

don't wear outward symbols of our faith so there is no reason why i would get identified on the street that way at i experience something that was rather raw and intense which i hadn't before. >> host: you then say that you felt your children prematurely were thrown into the inferno of islamaphobia because now you are witnessing like the rise of islamaphobia with people heckling and saying things like go home or go back to -- what was that like for your children? >> guest: it is, if we could only just stop all of us then consider that there could be a 10-year-old at home being exposed to that, 10-year-old who has never known another home then new york city or united

states or doesn't have a home to go to other than here and you have these placards and signs saying muslims go back or all muslims are terrorists or as you describe the heckling, then i think that answers itself. as a mother, one can only be very concerned and my first reaction was to protect my children and the second is to empower them. at the same time, i am very wary of making them feel like victims because we are not. we are blessed and we are lucky to here. that is the promise of america. our ideals and its constitution and its our journey to take, a journey that has been very well-paid for us by traditions the forest. >> host: you tell this thing at the beginning of one day having a cup of coffee in your one-handed and you get this google alert and then you see your son.

tell us that story. >> guest: yes, it was at the time the height of the controversy, the downtown mosque controversy. i woke up and the first thing i do is check my e-mail and the results of a google search was i hate muslims. you can imagine the hateful sites that were out there. then i turned to my son, upset with what i think may be sort of an introduction to language that he shouldn't be exposed to being as young as he was at the time and as if to sort of alia my feelings he said mommy, mommy i wrote something. and he did. he wrote something rather impressive for a young man his age, a young boy his age actually. i don't remember the exact words

but i think the was to the effect that we shouldn't blame muslims just as we don't lame jewish for the death of jesus and just as we don't claim hitler and christians for the holocaust. that is very profound for those people who do not know what it looks like. in some ways i'm thinking this is a book for the sake of your children. >> guest: they are like most teenagers. my son is today but yes i do feel like this is something i leave behind for them. >> host: there is a story about your daughter who also, not only your son that your daughter also got involved in this. she was a very young girl and you talk about your daughter's project called it's okay assignment, right? tell us a little bit about that assignment. >> guest: that was way back

when she was just in first grade and it was a moment of awareness as a mother and them american-muslim that even if i chose to ignore islam it wouldn't choose to ignore us. that is because she goes to a wonderful school but she was at the time only one and 40 girls who identified as muslim. the project was, it's okay so it could be it's okay to be afraid of the dark. it's okay to bite your nails. in her case, and she was only a think seven or eight at the time or younger. she said it's okay to be muslim whenever he ran around you is jewish or christian. >> host: were you surprised that she chose back? did you know that your children were internalizing what was going on? >> guest: of course, and they think that that is the biggest challenge for american muslims to find their place, to find

their voice and to assimilate a healthy cohesive empowering energize way. that is a little bit more challenging for muslims these days. >> guest: . >> host: perhaps the people that were behind the islamaphobia record did not realize the impact on children. although they think they are opposing something but they don't realize how much little children eternal ice it. it may not be bullying but really they internalize even speech. the tone is sometimes sharper than the pen as we know. >> guest: from my experience those fears are real. i understand why many americans would be afraid or with fear the idea that islam, if one were to

understand islam as being jihadists then of course you would be afraid. but the truth of the matter, and this is the problem with muslim americans to communicate, this is not what islam was ever meant to be. so i think that fear is an equal opportunity. it's real to those who vilify but i don't think their reaction should be vilification. i think it's much more american for us to learn and for us to seek the truth. i think the truth is for american muslims to be there provide the true. >> host: i agree with you. i think it's very important for us to remove the ignorance because ignorance is the greatest danger to us all. now that you have written this book, what advice would you give other parents who i'm sure they

will get lots of ideas from your book. also i would like you to advise parents of hindu children and seikh children who are also minorities in their own fates. they don't have the majority religion you know and where they are part of that. they are not even part of the monotheistic tradition and this is something i'm sensitive to because oftentimes people say we are not really even in the tradition so what advice do you have for these minority religions that are now sort of arriving in america and are here and their parents and what should they do with their children? >> guest: i think that i will speak from my experience. i think that it's very important to not feel again as if we are victims because we are truly blessed.

because we escape to seek refuge. >> host: or we wanted to be part of the american -- >> guest: the american dream and opportunities. that is america's promise and any people most recently patriots take it to heart. it's a promise that means a lot and that's very dear to our families. those words are not rampant. they are values we live by every day, freedom of expression and the freedom to worship. we rely on them as american muslims for that dignity and for the opportunity to assimilate for quality and respect under the law. that is first and foremost what i teach my children is this country has been built and continues to thrive on those ideals. equally so whether one is from a

muslim or seikh background the synergy is there. no religion is built on hate. if it cannot survive. gods truth is absolute and beyond the nuances of the different traditions. whether we approach god through the seikh christianity or islam, rituals are not to use themselves. i-80 is not morality. morality is bigger and larger than our various traditions and the diversity within the traditions that we are all equally on that path, that path to absolute truth that says that we are all equal and we are loved by god and diversity exists, as we say diversity is a sign of divine mercy and that

killing, violence, injustice is absolutely unacceptable whatever tradition you come from. >> host: so embrace the american ethos of pluralism and as much as possible and engage with the pluralism. and commit to that pluralism and like you said, you know, pluralism is part of the divine plan. here we have in america opened up our shores and allowed immigrants to come and nourish it and flourish it. so, so allow everyone to be who they are in their uniqueness but also to be united to stand. >> guest: it's america's blessing and its legacy and its gifts to mankind i think that it has figured out a system where these guarantees, these security

guarantees its most diverse and oldest immigrants. our challenge is muslims and other parts of the world do not have. i often feel that we need to rescue god from the hands of the humanities, the humanity of the abuse of political power. god is in service is supposed to man's in service of god and fortunately in america we are less because they don't have to worry about that. god is rescued on the vanity of man. the duty of our diversity all on this journey every day towards the beauty of god. >> host: let's go a little deeper into this diversity issue. islam is very diverse in the sense that we have so many nationalities and manhattan is

unique because manhattan is home every ethnicity, every nationality, every school of thought that i know of is in manhattan. i call this the world to mecca. year-round we have muslims from every conceivable part of the world and all their shapes and all their colors. so, what do you feel when people tell you, because in the book you have mentioned you are not muslim enough or you don't fit that prototype of the muslim. i brought up that particular question because you look like such an american. so, does it irritate you when they tell you you are not muslim enough for you don't fit that image of what people have? the very thing that we fight against which is that all --

not all muslims are like we tend to impose it. >> guest: i would like to start out with the tension between orthodoxy and spirituality isn't necessarily particular to islam. that tension exists with an all faith traditions where if you will that orthodox assumes proprietorship or rituals are used to measure one's faith as sort of a yardstick of increased faith and moral religiosity. that is i think the future of many faith traditions but what is unique about the muslim experience is as we said in the muslim tradition and it's not accidentally so. i think it's intently so, intended by the wahhabist tradition, there is a belief that to qualify as a muslim you have to look a certain way or to wear a scarf for certain way or

to follow the rules. there is not an except ends. there is in this acceptance of diversity from within. if i were to identify the singular most important challenge to overcome as muslims it would be that, the notion that diversity is available to muslims. the truth of the matter is the reason why we are here today is because of the wahhabist inclination which i read somewhere that it's not only a historical but also anti-historical because it denies centuries of islamic theology and tradition and proud he. hundreds of years of diversity and subscribes to the idea that to be a muslim you have to follow its ethics from the seventh century and a very limited short period of time. and i think our journey as american muslims has to be about refusing being told by clerics

who speak for us that islam and its ideals is the seventh century reality. we are americans and muslims who need an islam of the 21st century. >> host: so in some ways i have many in the religious community say that you know they are not practicing jewish but they are cultural jewish and they identify with their jewish identity in a very strong way. so are you also been suggesting that there are muslims who may not be necessarily devout and may not be practicing all five pillars. they might only practice one pillar like charity or belief in god and not necessarily going to hajj or fasting for an entire month, but maybe sort of their making certain, those pillars occasionally, but not 100%. you are saying that type of muslim is the majority as every

other muslim? >> guest: i think there is a statistic and i mention it in the book, which is research done in europe which shows that 90% of muslims actually do not adhere to the exact rituals and demands of their religion so that would negate 90% of muslims from islam. it's a fact on the ground and we don't go around questioning christians or jewish or seikh for that matter. if they choose to self-identify as the faith they want to be an so be it. ultimately it's between them and god and so much more in the case of muslims where we don't have an official religious hierarchy. we don't have a pope. we don't even have confirmation rituals really so it is very much a religion based on the idea that your faith is between you and god.

glasgow and the creator. >> guest: i am very spiritual in my religion and my faith and i see kids on the spot. sometimes i do my writing of a clock in the morning and i like to think the prayer that happens before sunrise, the first is wake up, wake up and drive, wake up and work basically. driving is better than sleep and if i don't get up to necessarily engage in ritualistic prayer, i still get up and engage in some sort of work. if it's not my work as a writer, maybe it's my work in even maintaining, going out to the park in running or may be preparing for a meal for my children. i know so many mothers do that so i think the faith action and

practice in life personally speaks to me but that's my choice. >> host: god says in the koran that he who believes in god, meaning he, she human beings who are indeed have nothing to fear so salvation is the connection that you have so doing as much good as the can for human kind and serving god through serving humanity is really the way to securing that faith which we call heaven or paradise. but you talk about your confrontation with a woman in your book about an event. an encounter where she interpreted her definition of modesty differently than yours and if you can just talk about

that experience. >> guest: i think we were in virginia at the time and i was expanding on the idea that there is no one meaning to a sale. sometimes fails are taken up as a statement of oppositiooppositio n and sometimes a veil can be liberating. if you are in a conservative society that won't allow you to enter a mosque or interpret the koran or study or go to school you do it because it enables you to take that path of empowerment sometimes it can just be a very sort of, akin to the experience of the nun where you are seeking salvation or you have had an experience in your life where you are seeking solace out of a spiritual life. there are many interpretations of that dale and i think the thing that got to her was, and is not mentioned in the koran,

where it says take your koran and cover your bosom. she very much took issue with that and sent me out after the presentation and said to me, how can you call yourself a muslim? the five pillars of islam is what the house is built on and if you do not engage in them than then you are a weak muslim and yes the veil is very much required. you know, that is the beauty of being in america. we have the freedom of choice and it's her choice but i feel that my journey has been about feeling that i am equally muslim, that there is room for me as a muslim with the in -- that there are many progressive voices out there who are also on the same journey with scholars and academics who are writing about it and that is a natural development to the faith. >> host: so, of course there is no such thing as a lesser

muslim in the eyes of god. in the eyes of god in muslim is one who submits to the will of god and all power we practice in how we are judged is not up to another human being. i'm surprised that this development -- this woman came up to you in judged you on that aces. a lot of people have been saying that you know, there are no moderate muslims anymore. where are they? that as we hear, that continuous refrain from americans. where are the modern muslims? do you consider yourself to be a moderate muslim and if you do how do you define that? >> guest: i'm so glad you asked that question because i have to make a confession. when i was on the road it was singularly the most frequently asked question. it was always so where are the moderates? at the time, i became a little disdainful of it.

there are 6 million of us. we are your teachers and your doctors. we are everywhere. just because a mother gets up in the morning and prepares breakfast for her children doesn't make headline news and so what you mean where are the moderates? i worried that somehow within the question was a sense of prejudice that somehow i was an aberration, an exception and an atypical muslim so a sewell little distancing. and then after book two when i got home and there were no more speaking engagements, i got home one day and i had npr radio on. at the time, it was a report of a somali girl who was being stoned to death. she was killed through stoning. she went to report her rape and as a consequence they accuse her of adultery and proceeded to stone her to death.

i broke down in tears and i think suddenly have felt like i had to follow up to a new set of ears. i heard they question of moderates in a very different way, meaning that as a muslim i needed more than just justifying that act, which it is an aberration and specific to the anarchic conditions. i needed more than that. i needed to have absolute muslim physicians that would relegate these awful practices to a time and age that doesn't belong to today. we certainly have our work cut out for us i think as muslims and we do need to demand those. i know people feel it. i know no one who is sane believes that there should be stoning's or amputations are flogging in this day in the

world. the irony in the thing that confuses me and that i do not understand is i don't understand why some muslims have chosen to make that the ethos of islam. stoning wasn't invented by muslims. it was just as much a jewish tradition, and so we do need to articulate our very clear definitive positions. >> host: the fact that you are muslim woman and you have taken it upon yourself to educate the public and help guide muslim parents is an indication that muslim women are you know in the front lines. recently we have seen muslim women in tahrir square and all the squares all over the middle east, very much part of you know the pro-democracy freedom movements and challenging the status quo. so, i mean it's frustrating as a muslim woman when you know these

rights 1400 years ago but in some parts of the world there has been so much regression and all those rights have been taken away. if her worth to you and you had all the resources in the world what would you do to change that? you have already done a lot for you to. >> guest: yes, i think that first and foremost its education and enlightenment. it's a sad indication of where we are as muslims that the first word in the koran, the first is read of course. often translated as for site, line three citations with no clear understanding. it is of course to meet the truth, the better translation because in arabic it means to read and to read is to think, to critically think, to not just be blindly following and to think

is to take the profits life and put it in the context of his time and to understand that he was first and foremost a feminist, a maverick, a progressive who very much in his first marriage chose a businesswoman, his boss as and -- reminds us all the time that she proposed to him in marriage. how revolutionary is that? >> host: and she was 40 and he was 25. >> guest: and then we have of course other women he married who aisha is the first muslim lawyer and i think she has been shifted the most of the tradition of the hyades, the prophetic sayings and she and her time was consulted on the matters of legal issues in the community.

she was also a military leader. so it's bizarre to me that women are banished from driving for instant when they have these illustrious and incredible role models for women within our own faith tradition. so it definitely goes back to education, education, education and i think that what he the first thing. >> host: it's interesting you say that the prophet was a feminist because i remember darius dina munns came to me and said your prophet was a feminist we said yes we know that. feminists and the fact -- the sense that he was surrounded by women. if a woman walked into the room he would take off his coat and lie it down to she could sit in a clean space. he was very respectful of women so yes it is key in creating awareness all over the world. there is a lot of confusion in america about sharia, and i know

that you have spent some time in your book talking about what it really means. can you explain to the american audience, what is really sharia versus opponents of islam mia -- of islam insane. >> host: from your perspective. >> guest: from my perspective for me one of the most beautiful things that happened while i was doing research for the book was that i found out that sharia literally means the path to the watering hole. that is the past to salvation. ..

>> there is no religion and it is something dave very much appreciates and on terror and value but it is

irrelevant to it highlife of the databases but it is counted and used as a fear mongering but is definitely something and it is confusing not just to americans and muslims of seoul's. but i did research. >> to go around to see all little street vendors sand the discourse people who'd pray in manhattan to say here is sharia but we practice our religion freely

when we can fast and believe what we want to believe in or eat the type of food we want to each is sharia. it is very much a part of the american east coast. -- ito's. >> host: day say something in the book about your son? we believed in god is an essential part of our creed but in the book utah about if your son decided not to be a muslim that would be okay with you? >> guest: but within the context i don't think it is a choice said there is the

such thing to be forced in the it is about choice if you take that away there is no such thing gas forced morality. who are really tricky and? god? it is irrational. faith is the essence of morality and virtue. >> host: so you are busting the myth that says if a muslim converts he becomes the apostate so his life is at risk? >> to be ultimately i can expand a little bit there is one god who has created all the religions we just worshiped him from one liturgy to another that there should be no competition between these

religions. >> is that how you see it? >> one of the reasons i converted is because i think it is such a modern sensibility which took a medical diverse as a muslim i required to believe in jesus and moses and at 25 profits also the virgin birth of mary. in fact, according to tradition does not have any special position but five times per day in and prayer we are supposed to deal and pray and pray for the abm family that is moses and jesus. >> i think we mentioned

abraham 22 times in our prayers spin and that is where i find myself and faith tradition through of facility and cheese that there is one god and what absolute truths. >> host: what have we done wrong to not convey that very powerful message we have imbedded with the regard? what have we done wrong? >> we have them in the in the dark ages with this civilization and the air at the mercy of impressive, intolerance tendencies of a political system and they have taken the upper hand because unfortunately the

overabundance of oil money i am sad i think they don't even recognize their own religion. it is such a pathetic question isn't it is sad and equality of ignorance. we need to go back to our text and reconnect with our civilization even with federal of biology and the diversity we have the answers to what is it feel like as of muslim to watch muslims killing muslim using their own theology to you justify? with suicide bombings and killings? >> guest: it is disgusting.

it is shameful it brings shame to islam and to me i take it personally. looking at it in a very real way to bring into our home. >> host: but does your resolve get even stronger you have to do something about it? i see the you have that resolved. >> yes. i have a lot of passion because it comes from a real place that is concerned of hurt to in and frustration and and it enough with the disease and ignorance. i am sorry if i sound too forthright perhaps but it is passionate to very real and deere a and close to my heart as a woman and as a

mother as american and as a muslim. >> host: it reminds me of the suffragettes they decided be enough was enough they were not considered one wholesomeness in but all men are equal in the eyes of god or in the constitution in black men and black women it was those that were motivated by their faith that said god has created everyone in his image they and why is the will been inferior? -- womaned inferior? >> i and my character of the suffragettes movement and i know that you are also going along with the same legacies >> i think as it is close

and dear to my heart men and women have spoken up against these issues in the faith but have identified as agnostics or the x muslim but i come from a place of respect and that is the difference. i have the deep love of islam and at the same time much frustration and a passion to get it back together. >> guest: for political

gain. i think is the deep of fundamental respect that i hold dear as a family that is respect for america's values and we see no contradiction in like my friends that i write about about, you are not in american because at the time , he said to me your people are the source of all violence in the world. and to at the time i said i in your people to buy an american. he said no, you are not. i would like to add that is long bide definition is it a

violent religion but that question i think that both sides don't a answer well. it is a very divisive question and to to say it is a religion and peace but then to say a religion of more. but it is a few tyler approach. any religion is only as peaceful or violent as the hands the practice. all religions have had moments of peace and violence. is long is not immune to either. i think that is another point. >> host: thank you very much if you're really trying to educate yourself of the ignorance in the world please read the book is an

easy read you could read it over a weekend. thank you very much for joining us today ranya tabari idliby. >> guest: my pleasure.

[applause] >> it is great to be with you today in the other folks from heritage and senator demint i appreciate your hospitality very much today. we will talking about "prodigal press" confronting the anti-christian bis of the american news media." this book was written originally 25 years ago a