{"id":879,"date":"2005-12-12T08:54:22","date_gmt":"2005-12-12T16:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2005-12-12T08:54:22","modified_gmt":"2005-12-12T16:54:22","slug":"can-you-believe-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/12\/can-you-believe-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you believe it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Tribune<\/a>
\nOp-Ed by Dr. Eboo Patel<\/a><\/p>\n

I am an American Muslim.<\/p>\n

I believe that Prophet Muhammad brought God’s final revelation, the Holy Koran, to humankind. This is not based on empirical observation or verifiable fact. It is a matter of faith.<\/p>\n

While there is significant suspicion of Muslims in many segments of American society, the secular urban liberals and progressive religious believers I know rarely question the premise of my faith. They do not ask me to read books by their favorite scholars so that I may be enlightened by their views. They do not roll their eyes when I make a reference to Allah in conversation. They certainly do not assume, based on my Muslim identity, that the briefcase I bring to business meetings is filled with bombs.<\/p>\n

Why is the basic principle of getting to know a person before painting him with a negative stereotype not applied across the board? Why do so many liberals see a theocrat whenever they hear the word “evangelical”?<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The Aspen Institute is about as far from middle America as you can get. It is decidedly not Rick Warren territory. I think the audience entered a little suspicious, and Warren surprised them. He never asked, “Who has yet to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior?”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

In my question, I admit to baiting Warren a little to see how he might react. I stated that I was an American Muslim who led an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core that brought young people from different faiths together to build understanding through service projects. I asked him whether the evangelical community would be interested in being involved in these interfaith service efforts.<\/p>\n

Warren could have stopped me after I said that I was a Muslim and suggested that I start building a personal relationship with Jesus. Instead, he smiled and opened his arms wide and said, “Bless you. We need more interfaith volunteer efforts in this world.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

American pluralism is about people with radically different belief systems working together on matters they share, going their separate ways on issues they disagree on, and living in mutual trust as neighbors regardless. Pluralism is the most precious part of our civic fabric. In other parts of the world, people kill each other over different beliefs.<\/p>\n

It is OK with me if evangelicals think we will be separated in eternity, as long as we can live in peace on Earth together.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Tribune Op-Ed by Dr. Eboo Patel I am an American Muslim. I believe that Prophet Muhammad brought God’s final revelation, the Holy Koran, to humankind. This is not based on empirical observation or verifiable fact. It is a matter of faith. While there is significant suspicion of Muslims in many segments of American society, the secular urban liberals and progressive religious believers I know rarely question the premise of my faith. They do not ask me to read books…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[50,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-domestic-affairs","category-islam","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-eb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}