tv After Words CSPAN January 12, 2014 9:00pm-10:01pm EST
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needing a part of this truth. >> article tv this weekend on c-span2. online for this months booktv bookclub, we will be discussing the liberty amendment by marco van. join the conversation at booktv.org and click on bookclub to enter the chat room. >> up next on booktv, "after words" with the executive director executive director of the american society for muslim advancement. this week burqas, baseball, and apple pie. in it, the coauthor discusses her attempts to assimilate into u.s. culture while confronting both americans who fear her family because of their faith and fellow muslims who she says distort islam.
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this program is about one hour. >> host: most people would not think about this when they look at you. tell us about your story. where do you come from? >> guest: i am often told that. so it is sort of a double whammy that way. originally my father left around 1948. he was a 16-year-old in the 1950s and landed in chicago and ended up graduating and spending a year at the university of illinois at champaign. and my mother was very young in 1948 and her father was a civil
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engineer and ended up being employed in kuwait. so my background as my father going back to the oil-rich gulf states when he was a young man and he took a job there. and they started a family. i also grew up in dubai. >> said they didn't have an arranged marriage? >> oh, no, not at all. i think as a civil engineer he was working next to home and he was watching her go in and out of the house and he fell in love with her. so they were eventually introduced by mutual friends. >> host: he went to school here. what was that like? being a palestinian and muslim and living in america. what was that like?
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>> guest: my father had bought a small home and so i grew up watching a lot of the i love lucy and i fell in love fast. so i was quite taken the american culture and the cultural aspects of it. and when i finally ended up at georgetown university, i fell in love with the american dream and the founding fathers. because as someone who is a palestinian, i never did really enjoy the security of absolute citizenship. we were very much at the whim of working permits and visas. so i took this very much to heart, the value is of the american dream and the protection and it has been a
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wonderful story cents. >> host: and you must have fallen in love with your husband because you married him. >> guest: that is right. we first met at the washington harbor a sexy you are not an arranged marriage? >> guest: know, no one in my family has had an arranged marriage. my grandmother wore a bathing suit and swim way back when and we come from a long line of progressive women. >> host: some time to do an examination of your life going to school, falling in love, having two beautiful children, living in manhattan. a wonderful life. and all of a sudden you're writing books. so what was the inspiration what
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happened? >> guest: is a phd candidate in more political and more political than religious and my interests on that field. and i feel like before 9/11 you can call us accidental muslims. and many of us had a sort of accident accident of birth and that's how we met. i think what 9/11 did, and it happened to many muslim americans. that sort of took us to a new level and the talking pundit on tv was an expert. and we were told that you couldn't be a woman and a muslim. and the violence was inherent to the theology. so there was a lot coming at me. and as a mother of a toddler and two children at the time, my
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daughter was starting kindergarten and i was very worried about the future of my children and i felt like okay, if being muslim is just a label and is something that we are as a family, then why put them through that challenge. it had to be more and hence it was the beginning of this journey. postmarks of the terrorists blow up two beautiful buildings in our city and our state and our country. to what so what is the impact on a person like you who is living a comfortable life in manhattan and what impact does that have on you and what do you think about this for the audience that is listening to barely get to hear from people like you. can you tell us what you think of these terrorists and how they have affected your life?
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>> guest: they took away the life debate took away that day. for my perspective coming out at , the pain of those lost by the terror those days. and it was compounded by another challenge and we were guilty by association and that was our wrenchingly difficult and as a mother even more so as you grapple with trying to make sense of it all with two very innocent children. >> host: your son was told? >> guest: my daughter was just beginning to garner my son was three and i remember sadly that her first day at school was actually the morning of 9/11
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from the first official day of kindergarten. and i write about this in the book where i packed a spiritual talismanic protection for my daughter in her backpack postmark that is like of the christians tearing across? full protection? >> guest: yes, it is. and it was a big oversized backpack. and as i watched the images and the horror of that day and the buildings going up and thinking that talisman that i packed it so lovingly in my daughter's backpack were being used to reach he inhabit. the juxtaposition of those two was mindnumbing and confusing and very existential and it is a parenting level. and so the journey has been for me a journey of understanding
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the issues and empowering my children. we can teach our children to disassociate and disengage and i'm told that this is all true to the jewish experience. we have stereotypes out there and you try to develop your identity, you can say that i am not quite muslim. >> there is a lot of, you know, people are shying away from celebrating were doing this in the office and people are closing up their. >> estimate that as a natural reaction in and a difficult journey. but it is one that i hope and i don't know that i've made the right choice, but i do feel like by taking my children along and
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insisting -- what i do is reveal as we learn together and slowly they have chosen to self identify as muslims as well. and i think that by doing that i hope that they can hold both america accountable to its higher ideals as they can hold islam to its higher ideals. and what it means to be american and muslims and change in a better world. >> host: i find it extremely profound that you chose to do this with your life. because many people, are two types of people. people of conscience to who take it upon themselves to create a change and you have not only written a book called the faith club which is very popular all over the united states there is
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always a little old lady that says oh, the the faith club, i things were mentioned or not. and so that was one book that you wrote about, three women coming together to explore their faith and now you have written a new book which is sort of like muslims of self examining and i love the title of the book. "burqas, baseball, and apple pie: being muslim in america" and i thought, what is she trying to say? so what are you trying to convey to the americans? >> guest: some people take issue because they thought that somehow that the burqa would compound the stereotype. and i think it's catchy and i like the way it sounds in the truth of the matter is that it's a metaphor for what people
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associate and it is something that is an issue that i deal with. and you're right that my journey started back with the faith club, which became such a gift and a blessing to me because it took me all over the country from the mountains of idaho to the shores of jacksonville, florida. and i fell in love with america all over again. and america became virtually a faith club to me. and people are so eager to learn. most people do not have the opportunity to meet in person. i only have the headline is to go by order they don't have a neighbor like this. so it was just such a gift. and it definitely is a journey in which i have taken and become
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aware of and have held it up and i have taken on issues that i think would be challenging for my children is a mature as self identifying an american muslims. so i didn't want don't issues is to be ones that are islam and the judeo-christian tradition and this is part two which is a continuation of the journey that i had started. >> i saw it is time to take back this and because there are some profound things that have happened that you talk about. certain experiences with your children that have propeller propelled you to take action and we will talk about a little bit later on and we will go into the details. there is something that you mention in the book and you suffer from church and temple
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and me. can you explain a? i'm curious what you mean by that. >> that is a difficult one. at the time i made that statement, and i still feel it today. i had priscilla and suzanne who were members of their respective temples and churches and in times of pain and distress they have the solace of a community in the fundamentals being introduced to the children. we will come together as a community to affirm their identity as part of a community of spiritual people. and yes, there are mosques in new york city. it is just -- to understand my envy you have to understand the
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we are definitely secular muslims and progressive muslims. and so i needed a place of worship where we didn't stick out as a sore thumb and we are first and foremost americans. and i think that smacks the one institution that has a cultural expression? >> yes, we are not the most recent of immigrants. and so, you know, and yes, it is a place where equivalent of a ymca. okay, so let's go to that specific thing you mention in the book which i found to be very moving. you talk about the experience downtown. which you know i was involved with. so full disclosure to the
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audience and you are asked to come to a committee board meeting. and then describe the feeling that you left with that day of what you saw in the room and here you were as an integrated americans standing up there knowing that your children needed a home and you're coming to speak about it. what do we put that day and can you describe that scene you described in that book and i would love for you to tell this audience is listening to you what was i feeling like. >> it was rattling. it was tangible. tangible vilification, i think. to be on the receiving end of that type of emotion is never a pleasant experience. and what was going through my head was oh, my goodness. and we are not the only
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community to have experienced these feelings of intense negative stereotyping which was before us and other minorities have had that. and i would have felt -- i couldn't help but take it personally and it was just a scary feeling and we don't wear outward symbols of faith. so there is no reason that i would be identified on the street that way. but as i experienced something that was very intense, which i hadn't before. >> you then say that you felt like her children were prematurely thrown into the inferno because now you are witnessing the rise of islam phobia and people heckling and saying things like go home and
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go back to mecca and we're not even from mecca. what was that like for your children? >> guest: if we could all just stop, all of us, and consider that there could be a 10-year-old at home, a 10-year-old that has never known a home outside new york city or america and who doesn't have a home to go to other than here. and then you have the placards and signs saying okay, go back and the heckling as well. and i think that that just answers itself. if one could be a concern. i'm very i am very real and making them feel it is because they are not part of this. we are blessed and lucky to be here. and that is the promise of
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america. there'll be are protected by the ideals and our constitution and it is her journey to take and a journey that has been very well paved for us by other faith traditions before us. >> host: and so you get up and you're having coffee and you have this google alert and you see your son that has intervened. what happened? >> guest: at the time it was the height of the controversy and i am -- i woke up and the first thing i do is check my e-mail and there was a result of google search for why they hate muslims. you can imagine the hateful websites that were out there. then i turned to talk to my son and i am upset with what i think may be sort of an introduction
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to language that he shouldn't be exposed to being as young as he was at the time. and so as of two lameness for my fears, he said mom i wrote something. and he did. he wrote something rather impressive for a young man his age and i don't number the exact words but i think that they were to the effect of [inaudible] just as we don't blame jews for the death of jesus, and we don't have questions for the holocaust was not a very profound for those who don't know what this looks like. that is a beautiful way to put it. and so in some ways i'm thinking that perhaps he wrote this book for your children? >> guest: i did. and you have to read it, of course. they have yet to read it. my son is young teenager today
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and i do feel that this is something that i believe behind them. my daughter was a young girl and you talk about this and a moment of awareness as a mother. even if i chose to ignore islam, it wouldn't chase away the past. but because she goes to a wonderful school but at the time she is self identified as a muslim, and so it could be to be afraid of the bark and in her case, she was only seven or eight years old at the time, perhaps a lot younger.
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and she said it is okay to be muslim and everyone around you even though they are jewish and christian. >> host: rhys pryce the teachers at? >> guest: yes, i think they were of course internalizing what was going on. and i think that that is the biggest challenge of all. and we have this in a healthy and cohesive and energized way. >> perhaps the people that were behind this and they didn't realize the impact on children. they don't realize how much little children internalize this.
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and from my experience those fears are real. and they would fear that, you know, the idea idea that islam. in order to understand this, like the jihad is, of course you would be afraid. but the truth of the matter, and this is what is incumbent upon us to communicate. those are not the values of islam, clearly. it is not what islam was ever meant to be. and i think it's good for us to
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learn and seek truth. >> host: i agree with you. i think it's very important for us to learn from the events in the greatest danger to us all. and so what advice to give other parents and also i would like you to see parents of hindu children were also minorities in their own faith and they don't have the majority in and, you know, they're not even part of this tradition and this is something i'm very sensitive to. because oftentimes people say we feel left out. so what advice do you have for all of those minority religions that are now arrived in america
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and are here and what should these parents do with their children? >> that is a bit want big one to chew on. but i think that you speak from my experience -- i think that it is very important and again i said this is that we are victims, but many of us talk about escaping discrimination or conflict. >> or we want to be probably involved. >> absolutely the land of opportunity. and so many people, many of the patriots tickets to heart. and it is a promise that means a lot and is very dear to us and our families. and they are values that we live by every day and we rely on them
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as american muslims for the dignity and the opportunity under the law and that it's first and foremost what i teach my children. this country has been built continues to thrive on those ideas. equally so whether one is from a muslim background or another background, those ideas are there. and no religion is built on hate and god's truth is absolute. it is beyond the nuances of the different traditions, whether we approach the rituals of judaism or islam, rituals are not values. piety is not reality.
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and the diversity within the traditions, which we are all equally on that path to god and to truth and to absolute truth that says we are all equal and loved by godgod and we say that diversity is a sign of divine mercy. and that killing and violence and injustice, it is absolutely unacceptable where i come from. >> host: so embracing this as much as possible and engage with this and commit to that. and like you said, you know, federalism is part of the divine plan and here we have opened up our shores in america and, you
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know, so allow everyone to be who they are in their uniqueness and to be united and to stand. >> guest: that is america's blessing and legacy and gift to mankind that it has figured out a system where the securities are guaranteed for the most diverse in its oldest immigrants and i think our challenge as muslims and other parts of the world, some countries do not have those and often i feel that we need to rescue god from the hands of the humanities of the abuse of political power and in many of the majority countries. and we don't have to worry about that and god has rescued us from the vanity of man and in the
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beauty of our diversity driving towards the beauty of god. >> let's go into the diversity. and there's not a verse in ways that we have so many nationalities in manhattan is unique. home to this entire diversity. every ethnicity and nationality in every school of thought that i know of. so i called his we enable year-round mecca. and all of these shades and colors as well. and so what do you feel you do
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not fit that prototype of a muslim and does it irritate you or you don't fit that image of what people have? the very thing that we fight against, but not all muslims are like, we impose it on our own community. to talk about that. >> guest: i would like to point out the tension between orthodox and spirituality is not just particular to a system but it exist with all faith traditions where there is a proprietorship and rituals are used to measure the yardstick and that is a
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feature of many faith traditions. and as you said within the muslim tradition it is intently so intended by the traditions and there is a belief that to qualify we have to look a certain way or to follow the rules and there is not an acceptance or the diversity from within. and if i were to identify the single challenge it would be the notion that diversity is just as available and the reason we are here today is for not only into historical. and this includes plurality in
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tradition for hundreds of years of diversity and we have to just follow the effects from the seventh century and a very limited short. lack of time. and i think that our journey as americans has to be about refusing -- being told by clerics and others who speak for us and the ideals that we are americans and muslims who need an islam of the 21st century. >> host: in some ways i have heard that some are not proxim jews but they identify with their jewish identity in a very strong way. and so are even suggesting that they are muslims who may not necessarily be practicing all of
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this and they may practice only one pillar like belief in god and not necessarily fasting for an entire month. but maybe dabbling in those pillars occasionally and not 100%. >> yes. i think there is a statistic that i had mentioned in the book. which is research done in europe which shows that 90% of muslims actually do not adhere to the demands of the religion. and we don't go around questioning christians for that matter and if they choose to self identify as the think they
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want to be in, so be it. ultimately it is between them and god. and so much more in the case of muslims who don't have an official religious hierarchy. we don't have confirmation rituals really. so it is very much a religion based that your faith is between you and god. and the creator. members still spiritual. and i seek it and am inspired by it and sometimes i do most of my writing at five in the morning and i like to think that that happens before sunrise at times. the first call is wake up and drive. wake up and work. driving is better than sleep. and if i don't get up to net content medullary engage in
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prayer, i engage in some kind of work. if it's not my work as a writer, perhaps going to the park and running and maybe preparing that evening in the house to have a meal with my children. i think that personally speaks to me and that is my choice and i respect other people's choice as well. >> host: they say he who believes in god and does good deeds has nothing to fear. so salvation is very important. >> guest: yes, it will be in relevance to what we call heaven
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or paradise. we talk about confrontation with a woman in your book about an event and you mention an encounter where she interpreted her definition of modesty differently than yours. and if you could just illuminate a little bit about that experience. >> we were living in virginia at the time and i was expanding on the idea that there is meaning to avail straight sometimes they are taken up as a statement of opposition and sometimes avail can be liberating. in a conservative society and it enables you to take that path of empowerment and sometimes it can just be a very good experience
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for you are seeking salvation or you had this kind of experience in your life where you are seeking solace in the practice of life. there are so many interpretations available. and they said to me, how can you call yourself a muslim in the five pillars of islam is what this house is built on. and if you do not engage in that, then yes it is very much required and that is the beauty of being in america with the freedom of choice and it is her choice that i feel that my journey has been about this feeling and there is room for me
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as a muslim within islam and there are many progressive voices out there who are also on the same journey and scholars and academics and that diversity is a natural development. >> host: so there is no such thing as a lesser muslim in the eyes of god. it is a person that commits to the will of god and how we practice and how we are judged is really not up to another to another human being. i'm surprised that this development, that this individual judge you on that basis. but a lot of people have been saying that where are the moderate muslims. you consider yourself to be a moderate muslim? and if you do, how do you define
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a? >> guest: i'm really glad you asked that question because i will have to make a concession. when i was on the road, it was singularly the most frequently asked question and i was aware of the moderates. and at the time i became a little bit disdainful of it, 1.6 billion of us, whether you are teachers ordered doctors order nurses. just because someone gets up in the morning and prepares breakfast doesn't make headline news. and so i worried that somehow there was prejudice and somehow i was an aberration and an exception in a typical muslim. and so after the second book when i got home and i didn't have to go to speaking
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engagements, i got home and i had the npr radio on. at the time it was a record of an individual being stoned to death. she was killed or stoning. she went to report the rape and as a consequence they accuse her of adultery and proceeded to stone her to death. and so i broke down into tears. and i think that suddenly i felt like i had developed a new set of ears and i heard the questions with the 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 conditions within somalia. and i needed more than that. i needed to have positions that would relegate these awful
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practices and so we certainly have our work cut out for us as muslims and we do need to demand those. i know people feel it. i know that no one who is sane believes there should be flogging or stoning in today's world. the irony in the thing that confuses me that i cannot understand is i don't understand why some have chosen to have it be the ego is of this because it wasn't inventing by muslims it was just as much a jewish tradition. and so we need to articulate very clearly in the positions. >> host: of february muslim woman and you have educated the public and help to guide the muslim parents is an indication that many are in the front lines
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and we have seen this all over the middle east, very much a part of, you know, pro-democracy freedom movement and challenging the status quo. and so it is frustrating as a muslim woman we know that islam has granted women all these rights. and yet in some parts of the world and has been a lot of aggression and all of those god-given rights have been taken away. if it were up to you and you had all the resources in the world, what would you do to change that >> guest: well, i think that first and foremost it is education environment in a sad indication of where we are as muslims that the first wording for us is often translated as
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blindly citations with no clear understanding. and there is a better translation and so to read is to think, to critically think and not just be blindly following. to think is to take the profits life and to put it in the context of time and understand that he was first and foremost a maverick and a progressive who very much chose a businesswoman and his boss and it reminds us all the time that she proposed to him in marriage. how revolutionary is that. >> host: and she was 40 years old and he was only 25. >> guest: guess, an older woman. and then we have of course other
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women that a show is the first muslim lawyer. and i think she has contributed the most to the tradition of the profit sayings. and her time was consulted over matters of legal issues and she was also a leader. so it is bizarre to me that women are banned from driving, for instance, when you have this illustrious an incredible role models within our own faith tradition and so it definitely goes back to education and more education. and i think that that would be very interesting. >> host: i remember meeting gloria steinem once. feminist and a sense that he was surrounded by women and gay
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women, you know, if a woman walked into the room he would put it down so that she could sit in a clean space and he was very speckled women and so yes, education is a key, including awareness all over the world. and there is a lot of confusion in america about sharia. and i know that you have spent some time time in your book talking about what it really means. can you explain to the american audience what is part of this verse is what proponents have been saying that it is? >> guest: at first i am not an expert. honestly. but from your perspective, it's one of the most beautiful revelations that happened while i was doing research for the book and i found out that it means the path to the watering
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hole. and that is the path to salvation. so if you imagine that the profit came down and water was the water was the most valuable resource and the difference between life and death. so the path to the watering holes are path to salvation. and it isn't something that is static or dead, it's very much alive. and in fact all religions and faith traditions have to be alive on a journey where otherwise they become archaic and stale and irrelevant. and that is unfortunate. my fear is if we continue to speak on behalf. so it is the equivalent of the
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law and certainly we all know that in america we are not about to replace our separation of church and state or court system. there is no religion and thankfully so. something that american muslims very much appreciate. something that they honor and value. so the fact that it was touted and used as this big sort of fear mongering and one more big and scary word it is -- it is definitely something that is confusing with muslims themselves and it certainly did elicit many questions on my part. because i did my research as well.
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>> host: jon stewart had a segment on us and he went around and saw all of this and those who sell this and he says okay, here it is and there are people who are paying in manhattan and all of the places of worship. and the truth is that when the ability to practice religion and we can believe in what we want to believe and we can either type of food that we won't eat, that is sharia law. so in that respect it is very much part of the american egos. and now when you say something in the book, you say something about your son. and we belong to the abraham ek faith traditions and belief in god is an essential part of our
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creed. and in the book you talk about if your son decided to embrace another religion that that would be okay with you. >> guest: yes, it would be. ultimately it is a choice. i do not think that there is no such thing as being to force forced to stay within a faith tradition and reality is about choice. if you take away choice and there is no such thing as this. and so god can see in our hearts and minds and to me it is counterintuitive and irrational. so yes, it is the essence and freedom is the essence of morality and virtue was not so you're basically busting.net that many run around wet, saying that if a conference he becomes
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like this and therefore his life is at risk. to me, ultimately, if i can just could just expand on it a little bit more. if there is one god and he has created all the religions and all they go is worship him in another liturgy, there should be no competition. between these religions. and is that how you see it? >> one of the reasons i converted this because i think it is such a modern sensibility that has so much built into their theology. and 25 other profits as well. i'm required to believe in this or christians for instance believe in the virgin birth of
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mary. and so does always have a unique or special position. we have revered them equally. and five times a day in prayer we are supposed to meet and pray and pray for a blessing and peace and so this is part of a. >> host: we mentioned is 22 times if we do our daily prayers. guess what that is very much what i find my home within the faith tradition that has a sense of facility and ease with the idea that there are many paths to god and there is one god and one absolute truth. >> host: so would have the muslims on wrong we're religion is so tolerant and embracing. what have we done wrong in not being able to convey a powerful message that we have embedded in
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our theology. what have we done on? >> guest: we have been living in the dark ages and we are at the mercy of very repressive and intolerant tendencies within the political system and within the faith tradition and they have taken the upper hand because over minor and i think sometimes the muslims sadly in some parts of the world -- i've had many asked me questions. and to me that is such a pathetic question if sonny's or muslims and it's sad and eight quality of ignorance. so i think that we need to go back to the text and to reconnect with our civilization and within our civilization and within our faith traditions.
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with their own theology and the diversity of our theology and we have the answers. >> host: so what does it feel like as a muslim to watch people using their own theology to justify those kinds of charges suicide bombings and killings and things like that? >> guest: i'm going to be blunt and it is the most -- it's disgusting. it is shameful. it brings shame to islam and shaped me as a muslim and i take it personally. i'm trying to bring it in a very real way into our home in not distancing ourselves from it. >> host: something that's stronger that you have to do something about and i see that as part of the resolve. >> guest: is coming from a real
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place of concern and hurt and frustration in a place of enough is enough with his idiocy and lunacy and so yes, i am sorry if i sound too forthright, perhaps. but it is passionate and it's very real and very dear and very close to my heart as a woman and a mother and an american. >> host: this reminds me of the suffragettes and when they decided that enough was enough and they were not considered a full citizen or they said oh, we are equal in the eyes of god and the constitution. and black men and black women were considered inferior. and there were the suffrage of women that were motivated by their feet. that being said, wisemen treating the black man inferior and women as inferior?
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so in some ways we have the suffragettes. we have some in common with them. and i am a proud inheritor of the suffrage movement and i know that you are also as well, you're going along that same legacy. >> guest: i think when you say inspired by their faith, or many women and men that have spoken up against these issues from within the faith they have perhaps identified themselves as agnostic in some ways. and i come to it from a place of love and respect for my state and that is the difference. i have deep love for islam and take the perspective. at the same time prostration and a lot of passion toward getting
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the act together was not so you're not rebelling against is on but the muslims that have done it justice for political gain? >> guest: yes, those who have failed it. >> host: so is there anything you would like to tell your audience that have not asked you? >> guest: i think my last sentence would be pretty much close to what i have talked about. a place of deep fundamental respect for the values i hold dear and that includes respect for america's values and islam's values and we have seen the contradiction between the two and unlike my omaha friend who told me that you are not an american and i think that at the time he said to me that your
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people are the source of violence in the world. and at that time i said, you know, i'm an american and he said to me oh, no, you're not. and i'd also like to add one other pet peeve that i have is the idea that islam is by definition, but it is a violent religion. i take issue with that because it is one of both sides do not answer well and it is a diverse of question and i think when many insist it's a religion of peace and the other side says it is a religion of war, i think that it is just a futile approach to it in any religion is only as peaceful as violent that it has found itself in the hands. if you look at any of our faith traditions, all have their
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moment of peace and violence and islam is not indifferent to either. so i think that that is another good point. >> host: ladies and gentlemen, "burqas, baseball, and apple pie: being muslim in america." thank you so much. you've really tried to understand and educate yourself. i highly recommend the book. it is an easy read and you can read it over the weekend and i thank you so much for joining us today. >> guest: thank you. it has been my pleasure. >> authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by public policymakers, journalists, and others familiar with the material. "after words" errs every weekend on booktv at 10:00 p.m. on saturday and 12:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on sunday and 12:00 a.m. on monday. can also watch "after words" online. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the booktv series and topics list on the
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upper right side of the page. >> recently the nielsen bookscan, which tracks much of the book market least their nonfiction bestsellers. sales from december 31, 2012 through december 8, 2013. proof is heaven is followed by bill o'reilly and martin daugaard's account, the life and death of jesus of nazareth in killing jesus. and jesus calling. and that number four, cheryl samberg presents her thoughts on the women in leadership positions. coming in of nonfiction books at number five is phil robertson, and
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