Chris Anderson: Welcome to the TED Interview. I'm Chris Anderson. This is the podcast series where I sit down with a TED speaker, and we get to dive much deeper into their ideas than was possible during their TED talk.
Today our guest is Islamic scholar Dalia Mogahed. She is uniquely qualified to share with us insights into the state of Islam in the world today.
When 9/11 happened, Dalia threw herself into a research project with Gallup, in which 50,000 Muslims were interviewed around the world about their lives, their dreams, the current state of their religion. That research became a book called "Who Speaks for Islam?" And then in 2016, Dalia gave her TED Talk, called "What it's like to be a Muslim in America." The talk was an attempt to diffuse the Islamophobia that is rife in so many parts of the world.
Dalia Mogahed (from TED2016): What do you think when you look at me? A woman of faith? An expert? Maybe even a sister. Or -- oppressed, brainwashed, a terrorist. If some of your perceptions were negative, I don't really blame you. That's just how the media has been portraying people who look like me.
CA: It was certainly an incredibly disarming talk. She got a big standing ovation and changed, I think, how a lot of people thought about Muslims.
Of course, Islam is often criticized for the actions taken in its name. So my goal with this conversation is to understand Islam better, while at the same time, not shying away from hard questions.
And so, Dalia, I'm delighted to have you here today. That really was a remarkable talk you gave. I guess it's so tempting to categorize people we don't know. In that talk, you helped us know you. What was the reaction to the talk?
Dalia Mogahed: Well, I -- I really wanted that talk to be a gift. I wanted it to be a contribution to the audience's understanding. I wanted to be up there to give them the gift of a new idea. And what came out of it was almost like a magical reception. I mean, I had so many people tell me how much they learned and how much they really changed. I remember one particular person which, right after the talk, actually at the conference, he was there as security for one of your guests, I'm not sure who, and he said, "I think that I was really struggling with some of these ideas you were talking about. I think that I was really suffering from some Islamophobia, but your talk completely changed my mind, and I want to thank you." And I've gotten these messages from all over the world since the talk. I remember one I got from Jerusalem. A Jewish Israeli wrote me and said that she related so much to the ideas of the talk, and how oftentimes her father, who's an Orthodox Jew, is mistaken for a Muslim when he's traveling in Europe, and he himself, ironically, has suffered from Islamophobia. So I thought it was a great opportunity to build a bridge, to reveal a little bit more about the humanity of ordinary people, of Muslims. And it was really important to me at the end of the talk to make sure that no one thought I was an exception, that no one could sort of dismiss my experience as just that one person, as the exception to all others. I really do believe that I am entirely ordinary, and my story is so representative of so many other people.
CA: Well, there are a billion and a half Muslims in the world, and I guess no one who cares about the world, actually, can avoid a conversation about Islam, even if they're not Muslim themselves. Islam is deeply involved in so many aspects of world politics. So many of the scariest, hardest debates and conversations about the future involve Islam in some way, and we're going to come onto those and try and tackle some of those in the next hour or so. But first off, I'd just love to know some more about you, Dalia. Tell us about your life.
(Laughter)
DM: Well, I ... there's so much to ... where do I begin? I'm a --
CA: Beginning in Egypt.
DM: I was born in Cairo to two educated professionals, two engineers -- my parents. Upwardly mobile, you know, upper-middle-class family, educated across the board. My mom was one of 10,000 students who was a woman in the class of aeronautical engineering at University of Cairo. So she was a trailblazer, you know, broke a lot of glass ceilings in the '60s.
CA: The only one out of 10,000?
DM: The only woman at that time in aeronautical engineering. My parents met in college, they then later got married and started their family in Egypt. And we moved to the United States in 1980, because both of them wanted to pursue a PhD. So we were in Madison, Wisconsin -- that's where we ended up -- and that's where I grew up. That's where I went to kindergarten all the way through college. And it was in this small college town that I really formed my ideals. For anyone who doesn't know anything about Madison, it's a very deeply progressive town. It's sort of your typical liberal college town but even a little bit more. I mean, it's known as the "Berkeley of the Midwest." And I was steeped into this culture of social justice. I came of age in this culture, and it was my framework for understanding the world.
And I remember stumbling on a book in my school library when I was 15 years old. And to my surprise, I learned that my faith, which I always held as important and a part of me, and my deep passion for social justice were actually integrated. They were very related in the history of the country that I was in. And it was in the person of Malcolm X that I learned, for the first time, that Islam was deeply ingrained in the history of this country and deeply, deeply relevant to the struggle of liberation in this country. And that was when I really transformed from being a Muslim in America to being an American Muslim. It was by learning about Malcolm X. I went from it being the religion of my parents, something I was inheriting, to something I was now going to learn about deliberately.
CA: Was there a moment where you just consciously said, "This is going to be a core part of my identity?"
DM: There was. It happened around when I was 17, two years after this process, after reading Malcolm X and studying the Quran. And it was then that I decided to wear a hijab, when I decided to practice the hair-covering and the modest dress as a statement of identity, really. What it started out as is almost a statement of protest, a declaration of independence from what I believed was an oppressive standard of beauty that was imposed on women. And I wanted to say no to that.
CA: Talk a bit more about that, because on the face of it, many people's gut reaction is to say, "Islam, you know, hair-covering ... What could be more oppressive than that?" That religion is assumed to be one in which women are oppressed. You found an argument and a belief that was actually the opposite of that. Talk more about that.
DM: Well, I think it's important, yet it's so hard to talk right about the hair covering, and why it, for me, felt very empowering, without first explaining the core belief of Islam, what really drew me to it as such a path of human liberation. And it was the idea of the oneness of God. A lot of people explain the oneness of God in ways that I think are very esoteric. For me, it was the idea that nothing is worthy of worship except God, meaning that I was not going to submit to anything less than God. I was not going to allow anything else to control me, whether it was society's norms or society's pressures or my own ego or greed or the desire to fit in or conform; that I had to put God first to sort of lead a God-centric life. And when I changed my paradigm in that way, I felt unenslavable, that I could not be enslaved to anything, because if the only thing I was truly submitting to was God, no one could hold anything over me to force me into compliance. It's a very ... it's a very freeing idea.
CA: That's so interesting. Am I right in saying that Islam means "submission"?
DM: It does. You could say "submission," "surrender," "devotion to God," yes.
CA: So that's right at the heart of it. And so there was this moment where this proud -- can I say confident? -- young woman who was fighting for feminism reached this point through this belief in this idea that she could surrender, submit to God, and in so doing, claim a different kind of feminist identity, as well as many other --
DM: Yeah --
CA: I mean, this isn't about feminism, it's about Islam. But that seems such a paradoxical thing for so many people. Talk a bit more about this.
DM: I guess I'll take a step back and just say that in that process of submission, I decided consciously to put my conscience over conformity, to break that kind of threshold of fear and make a statement that was declaring that independence.
CA: And how much of a debate is there in Islam itself about ... you know, between women, between what the Quran requires and what is appropriate? Because from an outsider's point of view, there seems to be a huge difference between that full facial covering, where you can't even see the face at all, and a scarf where you can see the face, you can make a human connection, if you like, with someone. What sort of debate is there, and what is your own view about what your faith requires?
DM: So, I chose to put on the head scarf and to wear long sleeves and long pants, and that's what I understood to be the mainstream understanding of the requirements for covering. There is a minority opinion that says it is required for women to also cover their face. Now, that is a legitimate opinion within the diversity of Islamic scholarship, but it is not held by the majority of scholars. There are also modern scholars, or, I would say, more modern academics, who read the Quran and say that it doesn't require women to cover their hair at all. And so there is also that opinion that you can find out there.
But I want to emphasize one thing that I think gets lost a lot of times in this conversation, which is: there is a lot of regulation on men that does not get acknowledged or is sort of ignored. The verse in the Quran that talks about women covering their hair is immediately preceded -- so, what comes first is an injunction on men to lower their gaze and guard their chastity. So it's telling men to respect women, not to violate them physically, but not even to violate them visually. And that injunction is without condition, and I think that's really important to emphasize. It is without condition; men are to behave this way according to the Quran, regardless of how a woman is dressed. And then it turns to women and says the exact same thing -- lower your gaze and guard your chastity -- and then instructs women to don a head scarf or to take the head scarf that they're already wearing and cover the rest of their body. The idea that Islam's ethical framework around modesty is only pertaining to women while men are, you know, not given any limits, is not true.
CA: And do you think most Muslim women believe this, believe that the suggestions in the faith are basically fair, fair to both genders, that they're wise, and that most women believe in them? Or do you think that a large number of Muslim women actually feel resentful that they have restrictions that men don't seem to have in the same way? They may have other restrictions, but not in the way they dress.
DM: So it's a really good question, Chris. I would say that there are -- I can never dismiss that some women do feel this way. But according to a study that we just published at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, we found that most Muslim women in America say that Islam is a source of joy and peace for them, that it is something that they are proud of. And they are at least as likely as men to say that. Ten percent of Muslim women say that they've experienced discrimination or associate Muslim communities in America with discriminating against women. So does misogyny exist in Muslim communities? Of course it does. But it does so, at least according to the data in America, as often as it does in any other faith community.
CA: Do some Muslims want to argue that the religion simply has a more realistic view about male-female biology, for want of a better word, that if you want to have a society where people value families, value the sanctity of marriage and so forth, you need to be careful that men, for example, can't always be trusted to behave if anything goes in how women dress? I mean, do -- these are hard conversations to have in the modern world. I mean, you look at the Me Too movement right now. Is there conversation among Muslim women that says, "That doesn't surprise us that that happened"?
DM: So, a couple things about the Me Too movement in regards to the Muslim ethical framework. First of all, unfortunately, Muslims are not immune, right? There are issues around sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Muslim community, so it doesn't protect you entirely from this issue, or at all, sometimes. So I want to emphasize that this is a human problem. This is a universal, human problem. Where hijab or modest dress comes in is much more in how it makes women feel about themselves, rather than, in my mind, limiting men's transgressions. It's about what this kind of a cover signifies to you, what it reminds you of and how it signals, to yourself, the dignity by which you should be walking, the way that you show up in the world. It's a lot more about a reminder that I am to lead a God-centric life.
CA: What about the many millions, I think it's fair to say, of young Muslim women growing up in many parts of the world who perhaps don't seem to have the same kind of choice that you had? You embraced the faith, you took a decision to wear a scarf. A classic story is of the 14-year-old girl who is married off and has no choice but to spend her life in a burqa when she's in public and just live a sort of very restricted life in a family, perhaps as one of several wives. Is that something which, within Islam, there are efforts to change that situation and give girls more choice?
DM: Well, first of all, this scenario does exist, of course. I think it's a lot more rare than I think the Western media would have us believe, but there's no dismissing that it does exist. So the absence of choice is always a problem. It will always be a problem as far as I'm concerned, as a Muslim, as an American, as a human being. So anytime a person does not choose, when they're sort of forced into a situation, that becomes a source of injustice. I do want to emphasize a couple things, though. Oftentimes, these situations -- you mentioned children getting married off -- are attributed to Islam. So, for example, Yemen. Yemen is a place where the average age of marriage is, like, 14. And we attribute it to Islam. "Well, this is a Muslim society, and that's why they have child marriage." We ignore the fact that in Algeria, also Arabic-speaking, Muslim-majority society, the average age of marriage there is two years older than in the United States. It's 29. What's the difference between Algeria and Yemen? It's not Islam. That's the same. That cannot be -- that is not the causal link. They're both Arabic-speaking Muslims.
CA: What is the difference?
DM: The difference is education and economics. And poverty leads to things like child marriage. In other parts of the world -- Romania, for example, not Muslim, of course -- poverty leads to child prostitution and a huge problem with child pornography. So we don't explain Romania's problem with child exploitation by looking at their religious beliefs. And yet, we are so quick to essentialize a problem that would otherwise be explained by economics if it were another country, by immediately reverting to Islam.
CA: I'd love to hear a little more about your own faith, what it means to you in your daily life. You live a life, you've got the stresses and strains of any modern life. How do you use your faith to make your life better?
DM: It's such a rich question, Chris. I use my faith, I harness my faith, and I go to my faith literally for everything that happens to me. What faith gives you at a deep level is a cure for, I think, loneliness. It's a response to the modern world's isolation. It's to know that you're not alone in this world and that you're cared for deeply and loved by God. And that knowledge, that ability to call on God, helped me maintain hope in times where it didn't seem like there was any hope, where everything around me felt very closed. I pray five times a day --
CA: I was going to ask you that question. Tell me what that is like. What are those prayers? Are you asking for things? Is it worship? Is it meditation? How would you describe it?
DM: Well, you know, it's all of those things. The five daily prayers for a Muslim, they're actually called "salat," which means "connection." So what you're doing is connecting with God five times a day. They're short periods of time, five to seven minutes usually, and what you're doing is interrupting the mundane drum of life to recognize the miraculous, to connect with your spirituality, with a higher power that reminds you of your purpose, what it's all about; reminds you of the hope that you should maintain, and also reminds you of your connection to others, your need to serve God by serving people.
CA: Do you believe that God has a plan for your life? Is that part of the faith?
DM: I absolutely believe that he has a plan for every single one of us.
CA: And is that sort of laid out in a -- does that basically mean that every detail of your life, in a sense, is predetermined? How do you think of that aspect?
DM: So, it's a complicated question. I do believe in free will. I believe in our ability to choose our responses to the tests that God unfolds for us. But I also believe that the things that tend to happen are predetermined, are written for us, and we are discovering that reality as we move through our life.
CA: I think this is similar to the kind of wrestling that I think I grew up with as a Christian, believing in God's plan but trying to makes sense of -- "Well, how does that reconcile with my free will? If I have free will, then he -- if he already knew it, is it really free?" etc. And a related question to this is this question of how you -- if you believe that God is this all-powerful force, how do you reconcile when terrible things happen, you know, when the boat sinks in the Mediterranean, and 200 refugee children die? That was part of the plan?
DM: I have to believe it was part of the plan, and we were never promised paradise on earth. We were promised a human experience that is filled with tragedy and filled with trial. And unless I believe in an afterworld, an afterlife that is infinite and perfect, it would be very hard to reconcile that with a compassionate Lord, right? So what I think many believers, in general, but Muslims believe, is that this world is a test. It is filled with imperfection and with trial and with incredible hardship. And we are tested to see how we will respond to those things, because it's only in the environment, in the ecosystem of a test, of a hardship, that human compassion can truly manifest. It is only if we are tested that we can show patience. It's only when in the midst of difficulty that our virtue can truly become apparent.
CA: I mean, this belief in the afterlife is usually consequential for anyone who's religious and has that belief. What do modern Muslims believe about the afterlife for non-Muslims? Do they believe, as certainly -- the traditional Christian belief is that unless you're a Christian, you go to hell, period. Is that what most modern Muslims believe today still?
DM: So there's a lot of ways to look at it, and there is certainly a contingent of Muslims who definitely believe if you're not a Muslim, you're going to hell. That exists, that's out there. Another way to approach it, though, is that everyone is going to be held accountable for what has reached them of truth. And if they decide to reject truth after having understood it and then die in that state, only then will they end up in hell. But that doesn't mean all non-Muslims will go to hell. In fact, many scholars have said -- very traditional scholars -- that most people will end up in paradise.
CA: So the belief in paradise is definitely comforting in many circumstances, and it definitely helps with this sort of problem of evil, I guess -- although you still have the suffering in this life to explain. But it also opens the door to something which troubles a lot of people, which is that it allows people to do acts which, viewed just through the lens of this world, can seem terrifying or unjust. So the most extreme example is suicide bombers, for example, who believe that they're undergoing an act of heroism, and they will do it because they believe in paradise. So let's enter this really quite challenging conversation around the relationship between Islam, terrorism ... How do we think about this? Because I know you believe passionately that a lot of the arguments that are made that terrorism is fundamentally linked to Islam are deeply unfair.
DM: Mm-hm.
CA: Talk to me about that.
DM: Well, Chris, I think before we can even enter the question of whether or not terrorism is fundamental to Islam, [we need] to take a step back and ask a different question. And that is, let's remove Islam from the picture entirely. Let's simply pretend for a moment -- just a thought experiment -- that Islam does not exist. And then let's examine these geopolitical situations in the absence of Islam. Let's look at ISIS. Let's look at that region with a failed state in Iraq, a brutal dictator and butcher in Syria, a brutal civil war, and take out Islam. Would a group like ISIS emerge under a different name? The answer is yes. And the reason I know that is because when those conditions exist, groups like ISIS tend to emerge. They are brutal, they are indiscriminate in their killing. And another thing they all share is that they envelop that brutality in the language and symbols of that society. So if that society happens to be devoutly Christian, they will envelop that brutality in Christian terms. An example of that is the Lord's Resistance Army. If that society is Jewish, they will envelop that brutality in Jewish terms. If that society is -- actually, there are secular ideologies that will use those symbols to justify their violence.
CA: But isn't it possible that what you just said might be true but at the same time, the beliefs of a religion could add fuel to the fire, if you like? I think the two things that people wrestle with in this regard, one is just the belief in the afterlife, and that very fact that allows -- it makes it more likely that someone may indulge in an act of sacrificial, for want of a better word, terrorism. But the bigger issue is some of the writings in the Quran, that seem to imply that infidels must be dealt with through holy war, you know, "Seek them out wherever they are, kill them." Isn't there a strong case that that, at the very least, has added fuel to the fire?
DM: I appreciate the question. I think there is a misconception that the terrorists are literalists, that they are simply following the letter of the law, they are straightforward, they are honest in their taking things as they look and acting on them. When you actually study what they are themselves saying and their own rhetoric, it is far from that. They actually do a lot of work to explain why their actions are a legitimate exception to the laws of Islam.
I'll give you a very, very simple example. Osama bin Laden was interviewed shortly after 9/11 by a Pakistani journalist, who was blindfolded and taken around, and then, finally, he met bin Laden himself. And he was asked this question: "How can you justify 9/11 in light of Islamic teachings?" So, the question we all want to hear the answer to. Bin Laden did not do what some might expect, which is to cite, you know, the "Verse of the Sword" -- the one that you just alluded to, what is called, sometimes, the "Verse of the Sword." He didn't cite it because he knows that most Muslims understand that that verse does not mean it's OK to go and kill 3,000 people in New York and in Washington, D.C. He would have no way of convincing his audience, because that is not what it means. There are entire scholarly volumes on the limits of military struggle in the way of God or jihad. So he had to explain why it was OK to make an exception to the rules. So he says in this interview, "It is true that you can't kill women and children in war." OK, so he acknowledges that. And then goes on to say, "But because of the brutality and the way that the United States targets women and children, it is permissible in this case to make an exception to this rule." And then he cites a scholar that he says has the similar opinion, that in this exceptional case of a very brutal enemy who has no regard for the lives of innocent people, it is OK to treat them the same way. And when you actually go to that scholar's actual writing, it's the exact opposite. He actually even misquotes the scholar he is citing. That scholar, in the way that he explains the very verse that bin Laden cites, says the opposite, that even in the case when the enemy is killing our women and children, we cannot target their women and children, even if it causes us great pain.
My point being that it is sloppy intellectually, intellectual sloppiness, to assume that the terrorists are literalists, rather than actually going and looking at what they themselves are saying. When academics like Olivier Roy have done analysis of the very rhetoric of these terrorists, what they have come back with each time is, this is mostly a political argument with religious phrases sprinkled in. So I have a problem with the idea that these guys are literalists, because they simple aren't. And they don't even claim to be.
CA: So when -- I mean, one sort of big-picture view of history -- and this is a story I've heard said many times -- is that if you actually look at the Bible and the Quran, both contain language that can be interpreted as a call to violence. You could argue about which has more, but let's say there's language in both. And certainly in Christianity's history, it's been used many times to justify violence, from the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition ... For hundreds of years of history this happened, that Christianity went through a process, with some examples like the Lord's Resistance Army, of largely filtering out those interpretations. In this view, Islam is not on the same trajectory -- yet. And there is more of a debate in Islam, isn't there, about how these things should be interpreted. There are at least a percentage, a meaningful percentage, of Muslims who show at least some sympathy for the jihadis.
DM: I think I actually would reverse that completely. I would posture the following: the freelancers, or the religious deviants in the form of ISIS and groups like them, are actually a very modern phenomenon. They are the quote, unquote reformers. They are the quote, unquote revisionists. That is why a consensus of traditional scholars, across the board, have condemned them on the basis of Islamic law, not on any reform, secular, humanist, "let's-change-Islam-to-be-better." Their problem is they have violated the basic tenets of Islam and its just war tradition. I am not here saying Islam is a pacifist religion -- it is not. It has a lot of say about war. And the reason it has a lot to say about war is because humans sometimes have to wage war, and the Quran is unapologetic about that. But it does not leave us to our own devices. It gives us guidelines for how to wage war justly, humanely, ethically. The Quran specifically explains, and the Hadith, limits on how to wage war. It is a doctrine that says you can't hurt noncombatants. It's a doctrine that says you can't even cut down trees or poison wells. So I have no shame whatsoever about the fact that this book deals with this human phenomenon called war. If it didn't, we would be left to our own devices to do whatever we wanted with no regulation, with no ethical boundaries.
Now, let's take ISIS. Are they extremists? No. An extremist is someone who reads a recipe book -- let's say the Quran is the recipe book. If my recipe says, "Add two tablespoons of sugar," and I add a cup of sugar, I am an extremist. They don't do that. They read "It's two tablespoons of sugar," and they put a cup of cyanide. That's not an extremist. That is a deviant revisionist and a product of the modern world. But I just want to emphasize one thing that I think doesn't get mentioned. Who do terrorists kill? Who's the victim of terrorism in the name of Islam?
CA: Yeah. In practice, it's been largely Muslims.
DM: They are the central and most prevalent victims of this problem. And I think that we have to take a step back and really ask: At what point do Muslims get afforded the assumption of innocence, the assumption of not even innocence, just human decency, that I think we afford most other human beings? I am a mom. I'm a taxpayer. I'm a coffee lover. I'm an American. And for me to have to prove to someone that I am offended by the killing of women and children is offensive to me. It is offensive. That should be assumed because I'm a human being. I'm a decent human being, and I would assume that about anyone else. And I am simply asking for that kind of fairness.
CA: And so, is it perhaps the case that a lot of the, let's say, well-meaning but sometimes angry advice given to Muslims -- to "do this," "sort out this problem" and "do that," is counterproductive, it actually makes it harder for people like you to -- you find yourself defending the faith, rather than focusing on change that you would like to see happen. What is actually counterproductive coming in from the outside?
DM: Well, I think what is counterproductive is to anoint the terrorists with the legitimacy that they so desperately desire of being the true Muslims or of being the representatives of Islam or of being the true believers that they want to be seen as, and then to conflate 1.7 billion people with this fringe, tiny group of criminals, which is exactly what they want and is completely factually untrue. It's very counterproductive, because we are fueling their rhetoric and their paradigm and their narrative, while alienating the billion and a half people that detest their actions and are, in fact, harmed by them -- our natural allies, if you will. To call them Islamic or to say that they are the ones who are the most honest or straightforward in their practice, is strategically counterproductive.
CA: So how should we think about -- I mean, you've done all these studies of the world's Muslims. How should we think about Muslim opinion? Is it meaningful to talk about moderate Muslims, fundamentalist Muslims? How, in your mind -- what does the data show? How should we think about how to categorize, if that's fair?
DM: You know, Muslims come in all shapes and sizes, and it's very hard to categorize them. It doesn't track with this idea of fundamentalist, moderate, etc. What we found in our research at Gallup when I was there and wrote, "Who Speaks for Islam?" with John Esposito, is that there is a fringe of politically motivated Muslims who condoned the attacks of 9/11. This group, which we call the "politically radicalized," were not more religious. They were not actually defined by religion at all. Some were religious, some were very secular. Some went to the mosque, some didn't. They were actually no different in their religious practice from the mainstream majority that condemned the attack. What did distinguish them in the way that I think matters to most Western audiences is how they thought politically, not religiously. When asked why they believed what they did about 9/11 being morally justified, their responses were entirely political in nature. They actually talked about things like reciprocity -- this is how Americans treat us, this will deter them from doing it again. Interestingly, and I think remarkably, the group that condemned 9/11, the vast majority, it was only they who cited religion.
CA: And when you said the vast majority, give us a sense. Like, is it 85 percent, 15 percent ...?
DM: It was 93. Seven and 93 were the two percentages. That vast majority who we call the moderate mainstream or the moderate majority, when asked why -- Why do you feel that way? Why do you condemn it? Because these folks were angry at America. They weren't like, "America's awesome, and their foreign policy is wonderful." They were also angry at American foreign policy, but they didn't think that meant it was OK to kill innocent people. So their anger did not translate to a condoning of attacks on American civilians. Why? Many of them cited the Quran. It was Islam's ethical boundaries around warfare that were cited to justify, to explain, "No, my anger doesn't mean it's OK to do that to them."
CA: So how has it been in the last, whatever it's been, Trump came to power. Have you noticed a change in feeling out there, just living as an American in today's America? What have you noticed? How has life been?
DM: You know, I've noticed -- I've noticed two things. I've noticed, on one hand, a greater openness of many people to really state very previously unimaginable statements of hate. And now it's become sort of more common in political rhetoric. Things that you just never heard before. I mean, for the president of the United States to re-tweet videos that belong in the fringes of the internet, in some hate site -- for the president to re-tweet them is previously unimaginable. So that's happened.
But on the other hand, there's also been such a show of enormous support, such an awakening, a consciousness that people have come to, where they've realized that there is this problem -- maybe that has always existed but we didn't know about it, and now it's become so overt that we can't ignore it -- and have really reached out to groups that they never would have. I remember the protests at the airports in response to the Muslim ban or to the travel ban. I don't think I've ever seen that much support for Muslims before this. I know I haven't. And I think that in some ways, God has a plan -- we go back to that. Sometimes what we see as something negative has a positive consequence, in spite of those who inflict that harm on others.
CA: I mentioned to Sam Harris when he was on that my father had worked as a Christian missionary in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and over time had shifted his views to a remarkable extent, from believing that the religion was fundamentally different, that Muslims had to be converted to Christianity, to coming to believe that Muslims worship the same God but just by a different name. And on the basis of that belief, he built many deep relationships with Muslims. I mean, is that reasonable language? And over the medium-term, what do you see as a way forward? Can you picture a world in which there is -- is there any way out of all this hatred?
DM: Well, I want to say a couple things. First of all, I completely agree with your father. I agree with him because that is the Quranic view. The Quran says, "Our Lord and your Lord is one. Say to the people of the book, 'Our Lord and your Lord is one.'" I believe that because that's what the Quran teaches me. And I would also contend that the exception is hatred, not the rule. I think that we ignore the fact that people of different faiths live, coexist, in peace, as the norm in most of the world. You look around where Muslims and Christians and Jews -- with some exceptions, of course -- live and have lived for hundreds of years, and the norm has been peaceful coexistence, not the exception. So I don't see this inherent antagonism in any way. I see the Quran teaching me -- the way I read my book -- not only is it teaching me coexistence -- which I think is a very weak term; I hope that we can do more than just coexist or tolerate each other. But it is going a step further, where it teaches me that if need be, I should fight -- back to that fighting -- to protect a Christian or a Jew's right to worship freely, that if their religious freedom is attacked or threatened, that as a Muslim, it is incumbent on me to protect them, to defend them. So it's much more than coexistence or tolerance. It is an active protection -- co-protection -- of each other's religious freedom.
CA: Dalia, if someone was touched by some of what you said and wanted to dig in deeper, what's their best source?
DM: I would send them to the institute's website -- the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding -- ISPU.org. You'll find a ton of great research there. I think when it comes to Islam and Islamic theology, a great resource is Yaqeen Institute, which is a wonderful resource for people who want to understand. Especially, they've really taken on some of these controversial topics that are often debated, and you can read and watch videos on that website. Those are my two best resources for you.
CA: It's been amazing talking with you. I've been surprised, in a way, at how hopeful you sound. I don't know if that's how you feel. You certainly sound, like, hopeful. There have been some really ugly things, certainly in the last year, certainly in recent history, but it hasn't taken you down, at least to the depths.
DM: You know, Chris, I believe in a compassionate, loving Lord. And I do believe he is ultimately in charge. No one else has sovereignty over him. And that gives me hope. It really does.
CA: Well, I wish some of the people out there who are angry, on any sides that we've talked about, could spend time talking with you, because it's very therapeutic.
DM: OK. (Laughs) Thank you.
CA: Thank you so much for the time you've spent.
DM: It's been a pleasure, thank you.
CA: Thanks, Dalia.
(Music)
CA: This week's show was produced by Sharon Mashihi. Our associate producer is Kim Nederveen Pieterse. Special thanks to Helen Walters and Imam William Suhaib Webb. Our show is mixed by David Herman, and our them music is by Alison Leyton-Brown.
In our next episode, a conversation with author Steven Pinker about whether -- shock, horror -- the world might actually be getting better.
Steven Pinker: What I always have to remind people is, there's a difference between progress and perfection. The fact that things are better now than they were in the past doesn't mean they're acceptable now. And in fact, the fact that the activism of the past and other changes have made progress, if anything, I think emboldens us to seek more.
CA: That's next week on the TED Interview. Finally, just a couple of quick comments about TED. Some people think of us as this giant media corporation. We're actually not that at all. We're a nonprofit. We're just obsessed with the power of ideas. We try and spread ideas that matter. If you want to learn more about what we're up to, visit us at TED.com.
And if you want to email me feedback on the show, I welcome that. Use my email, tedchris@ted.com. That's TED c-h-r-i-s at TED dot com.
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