Democracy is an Ummah, Too
Western Muslims should defend the West. It isn't perfect--but every alternative is far, far worse.
Planes, Trains, and Halaqas
It’s not easy to explain what I do. I mean, sure, in the abstract: Writes books. Gives talks. Teaches Islam stuff. But to see it is so different from just alluding to it. Unfortunately, because of COVID, I hadn’t had the chance to show F, Z, or R what it is I do in any relatable sense—for two years, the programs, talks, readings, panels, and other engagements that ordinarily filled my calendar were wholly hypotheticals.
With the pandemic’s retreat, though, and a new book right around the corner—Two Billion Caliphs drops on April 12, 2022—that’s beginning to change. The first thing I want to do in this brave new-old world is teach again. I love it, after all. The second? Identify chances for F, Z, and R to be part of such occasions, too. Planes, trains, and halaqas. From my created lips to God’s uncreated ears, as it were.
Several years back, I was part of a wonderful session introducing Islam to students from New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College. Not only was it a great experience, but it sparked a professional relationship that’s become a warm one, which I’ve been blessed to revisit several times, in New York, Boston, and Hanover. And blessed again: Just a few weeks ago, I was thrilled to hear from this same friend after a long pause.
He asked if I’d like to come back to Dartmouth at the end of February.
Of course I’d say yes. But I had a question, too.
Would it be okay if I brought F with me?
F is 15 now and, though she’s still a freshman in high school, she’s already started to think about college(s). Since I was being invited to a very prestigious institution, wouldn’t that be a grand chance to gift her peerless insights into undergraduate life? That’s not the only reason I asked her if she’d want to go, though. I really wanted to spend some time with her. And of course to show her what I do.
It took some twists and turns, but my friend at Dartmouth was able to put together an itinerary and, to my enormous pleasure, excitement—and, to be transparent, trepidation—F happily agreed to join me, just the two of us, as I’d take her, for the first time, to New England. Like I said, I was a little scared by this: Would she be okay being with me for three whole days? Would I be okay handling the responsibilities?
Would she like—or hate—the experience? Before answering, let me also say two other things.
The first is, I know Dartmouth’s an elite school, with all the pros and cons, privileges and hierarchies that depends on, internalizes, and reproduces. I know how remarkably fortunate I am that I have an opportunity to teach there, not to mention show her such a place—and how amazingly blessed she is that Dartmouth is a possibility we can even discuss. The point I’ll underscore is expanding the circle outwards.
For while we have a long way to go in America towards creating a truly democratic society (more on that later), that does not mean there is no progress on that front. After all, I intended to give F this access, and though my parents could not give me this type of exposure, it is in great measure because of them—and others besides, of course, not to mention God’s love and mercy—that I am even typing this essay.
College visits are invaluable opportunities that too few Americans have access to (and many of us who do, myself included, usually take them for granted); though my own parents gave me so much, as recent immigrants they could not give me some things—America was too new to them. When I applied to college, therefore, I was largely applying blind. Who knows what opportunities I missed out on?
Who knows how differently my life would have turned out had I had the chance to see more and experience more at her age?
So, if I can do something good for our family, am I not obligated to do that thing?
That said, I must also be clear—here’s the second thing—that I didn’t embark on this excursion with any expectation that F must as a result want to go to Dartmouth—not only can we have no idea where she’ll get in, but I don’t want to just impose outcomes (and I have no special connection to or preference for Dartmouth either, as I’m not an alum, employee, or the like.) College is such an immensely complex choice.
A big part of which is outside our hands anyhow.
But isn’t it a great thing to get to see a great campus? Not to mention, a charming one in a rural setting? (She’s already experienced several urban campuses.) Maybe there’d be something there that’d intrigue her, be good for her, or otherwise expand her horizons. Then add in that my Dartmouth friend arranged a day for her, including a campus tour, lunch with MSA co-Presidents, and dinner with some grad students.
That’s not to throw in that I was hoping to get her to see more of our beautiful country, to have some introduction to the New England that is my ancestral homeland (and thus an introduction to me), to help her grow outwards and upwards as she grows older. And before I knew it, the day was upon us. We arrived early at CVG, got a free upgrade on our flight to Newark.
Even managed to sneak in a big lunch on a short layover.
When we landed in Boston, it was nearly seventy degrees. But there was no time to enjoy this. “Live free or die,” you know. The Granite State beckoned. It’s a little over two hours’ drive up to Hanover, but it was a pleasant ride on a nice day, and we arrived on time at a very nice hotel on that very nice campus. Everything else was pretty nice, too: The food. The company. The scenery.
The class.
Below, the class—picture courtesy of F.
It was all good, in other words. Even when it wasn’t superficially good.
Let’s just say that, in the span of just three days, we ended up visiting seven states. Two of those, I’ll add, were unintentional, albeit not unwelcome. To the first, we had an opportunity to join a graduate students’ dinner in Vermont on Thurs. night. I convinced F that it was not only a singular opportunity but didn’t she want to say she’d been to half of New England too and get good food in the process?
Sadly, on the short drive back to Hanover, N.H., the car we were riding in broke down. And then later that night, a massive winter storm struck, causing us to land so late in Newark that we missed our connecting flight to Cincinnati, which meant we were forced to overnight in New York. But, we both agreed, sometimes the ways trips go wrong are what make them so hard to forget.
And I hope she won’t ever forget this one.
Not just the chance to see Dartmouth and New England. Not just the chance to meet older students dedicated to Muslim life. Not just the chance to get to know my world. But to hear the ideas and thoughts I try to share. The perspectives and histories that I think are so important but that unfortunately so often go missing. So that one day she might want to, and be able to, do the same.
Live Free—Or Putin
When my friend and colleague at Dartmouth first proposed this program, he invited me to think about how Islam intersected with diversity, equity, and inclusion. I wanted to give the eight business school students in the class I was speaking to the chance to see an Islamic discourse in action, to engage the belief system of a major world faith, and in so doing to step outside their comfort zones.
I was also hoping that would help F think about her faith more intensely, too. Sometimes, as I’ve learned, the best thing to do as stepparent is not to say what you feel is vital, but to model it—not to talk at someone, but to let them hear, process, and decide for themselves. And by so doing to make the subject less intense, less pointed, and less weighty. To make it a topic for discussion. Not a perceived imposition.
The theme of my presentation? Epistemic humility. Epistemology is to a marked degree the science of how we know what we know. Not the things we know, or not precisely that, so much as the ways in which we arrive at, develop, establish, debate, and challenge (our) knowledge. It’s the philosophy of wisdom. Add to that humility, which is, of course, is a core Islamic value, inseparable from modesty.
You can’t be humble without learning. And you can’t learn without being humble.
There’s humility in our physical actions. But there’s also just as much, if not more humility in our ideal cognitive approach to the world. Do we assume we are always right? Do we treat others’ ideas as less than our own? Do we privilege our needs over the needs of others? Do we promote fairness, justice, and compassion in the world, or brutal competition, naked acquisitiveness, and arrogant monopoly?
Because diversity is, of course, a significant part of our realities. But in addition to ethnic, racial, and other relatively commonly-discussed forms of diversity, there is also intellectual, ethical, or moral diversity. At first, I was tempted to call it “religious” diversity, but that unreasonably singles out certain existential commitments as somehow separate from and thereby unequal with others.
That is to say, “religious” diversity makes it sound like Islam or Christianity are ideas to be indulged or at best accommodated, whereas other moral commitments, such as those rooted in secular humanism or progressive liberalism, are more helpful, inevitable, or rational—and my argument is the opposite. In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, we are all in need of epistemic humility.
Because, for the first time in maybe ever, worldview with universalist impulses, aspirations, and conclusions—from Islam to materialist agnosticism—are colliding on a daily basis, with few mediating mechanisms. I do not want to ask any of us to forfeit our ethical frames, but I also understand that failing to acknowledge the equally far-reaching implications of other belief systems sets us up for perpetual conflict.
And that, in turn, means that all of us lose in ways small and large.
So, in short, I invited the students to think about what they believe, what others believe—and what frameworks, ideas, institutions, and practices could encourage us to find common ground. Epistemic humility is one. Some modesty, in other words, in our overall perspective and approach. It’s one thing to believe my faith tradition is a path to God. It’s another to believe that therefore I am on a path to God.
Or that others do not have a right to be heard, never mind rights altogether.
It was not lost on me that all this came together during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country that is being punished for the desire to exercise democratic values that we, in the United States, so often take for granted. I felt it necessary to weave that conflict into my presentation—not least because, over the past week, F and Z repeatedly asked me what I made of what was happening in Eastern Europe.
Live Free—Or Die
At the heart of Two Billion Caliphs is an assumption. A prediction. A conviction.
The world is becoming ever more individualized. The old ways of thinking, being, and living, are dying. And since they’re harder and harder to find, they’re therefore harder and harder to recover. If Islam is to survive, it will only be if we infuse ourselves and those who follow after us with a creative and passionate attachment to the core idea of the Islamic tradition: That we are all Caliphs of God on Earth.
That we are all morally responsible for ourselves. That no living individual has any special access to God. That we must each choose how to live out our faith in the world. That our religious tradition is eminently compatible with a gentle, noble, persistent democratic impulse. That authoritarianism is offensive to God and to our consciences. And that ultimately it causes great corruption in the world.
One can debate all day whether the United States and the West should have prodded Ukraine to consider NATO membership. We can debate how to respond to Russia, too, in this moment and in the months and years to come. We can, we should, we must. We should not allow anger or fear to drive us to injustice. All that is true. But I would keep a few other things in mind, too.
The first is, while the reality of the West has oftentimes failed to live up to its grander precepts, still I think we in America, and especially Western Muslims, are better off with a robust commitment to our Western allies and to a global fraternity of democracies. We must never impose this on others, but neither should we constrict our sympathies and turn our backs on those who aspire to shared values.
After all, the point is to expand the circle outwards—to make our democracies more democratic, more civil, and more prosperous within, without forfeiting those without.
If it’s broke, fix it. Don’t abandon it.
This is actual another major point in Two Billion Caliphs, one which has proven even more timely than I expected it to. I’ll have more to say about it later, but for now I’ll just say that the future trajectory of Muslims in the West may well diverge even more markedly from Muslims elsewhere, in part because we will become more markedly Western in geopolitical commitments.
The age of unchecked globalization is coming to an end. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We should want to engage with others.
But not at the cost of our present—or our future.
The second is, wrongs don’t justify wrongs. The United States was wrong to invade Iraq in 2003. Many foreign policy decisions in our history, and especially in my living memory, have been foolish, dangerous, unfortunate, immoral, or simply self-defeating. But that does not mean all of them were or are. Intervening to stop the genocide in Bosnia, and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, was proper and right.
Our tradition says we must stand against wrongs—even against ourselves. But here’s the thing: Not just against ourselves. It’s important to note when America makes a mistake. It’s also urgent to draw attention to when America’s competitors and nemeses make mistakes. We are judged not by nationality, ethnicity, or identity; we are judged by intention, action, and openness to changing course.
That’s the value of epistemic humility. If you believe you are so right there is no possibility of error, you will never be able to course correct.
You will march triumphantly, as the German saying goes, into your own grave.
The third is, Putin is by that measure a tyrant and a monster.
Consider his role in Chechnya. Or in Syria. And now in Ukraine. The reason the invasion of Iraq was vile was not because America undertook it. It’s because more powerful nations fabricated a justification for war—and didn’t even take the time to prepare for what would happen after the war, compounding the enormity and strategic absurdity of that decision. Why should Ukraine be treated differently?
As such, I told F and Z about the Soviet Union, about the fall of Communism, about the landscape of Europe today. I told them that just as we have religious obligations to Muslims, we have moral obligations to all people. And that we have a civic commitment to democracy that we should never underestimate. And that all of these things are perhaps inextricably linked.
For our faith requires freedom—freedom of conscience and action. And that our faith requires humility—epistemic humility, too. And that democracy requires discipline of the self by the self—that humble individuals, grounded in rich, thoughtful faith commitments, form strong societies, allergic to dependency, subjugation, and tyranny. Live Free or Die, as it were.
The years ahead might be hard because of the choices we and others make, but ultimately we have to stand up for what is right, even if it is confusing, hard—or even scary. God calls us not to do what is easy. But to do what is right. For ourselves. Against ourselves. And for others. This moment is a reminder of how precious it is what we have, and how important it is to work to keep it.
God help us do that.
Postscript (An Appeal to Heaven)
On a personal note…
First, I (finally) have a website! Though, of course, this (free) Substack is where I’ll keep sharing my thoughts, perspectives, and ideas, the official website is where you can go to learn more about my work, read reviews of—and buy—my books, and find a catalog of upcoming appearances. (Though I’ll also share word of those here too!)
Speaking of upcoming engagements, I’ve got some more to share.
On June 22nd, I’ll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables, Fl., in the greater Miami area, so please come through! Closer to release date, in April and June, I’ll be adding some more stops in the Northeast, God willing, including a few in Massachusetts and maybe some in Connecticut and New Hampshire.
That’s in addition to May 18th in Boston, Mass., and May 19th in Philadelphia, Penn.
Finally, I’d like to offer some further thoughts about what’s happening to Ukraine. That includes how we engage this topic with a younger audience.
The New York Times has a resource on “how to talk to your kids about Ukraine,” which might be of benefit (because it’s a conversation that is happening, or at least should be happening); meanwhile, Common Sense Media, which is worth checking out more broadly, has a list of the best news sources for kids, to give them context and understanding without sensationalism and alarm.
But that also includes how we engage this topic ourselves.
Here’s a list of reputable organizations to offer your financial assistance to. But you don’t have to stop there, of course. There’s also lobbying elected officials (as Umar Lee, a fellow Substacker, suggests) and also refusing to look away from the predictably authoritarian proclivities of thinly-concealed, unreformed once-and-future Islamophobes and consistently undemocratic blowhards, who claim to stand for the West but actually are Putin’s useful idiots.
We Muslims in America and the West have spent years demonized and discriminated against for an alleged systemic hostility to democracy which is not only untrue but deeply hypocritical. It’s about time we made sure all of America and the West noticed that far too many of the same people who insisted that Muslims were an existential threat to Western civilization are busy excusing, taking money from, cheering, and defending, the actual existential threats to Western civilization.