I'm writing from Toronto, where last night I gave a plenary address on Muslim-Jewish cooperation to the Biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism. Backstage after the address, my friend Rabbi David Saperstein gave me a grim look and said, "The shooter had a Muslim name."

He called his wife who works for NPR, and his face got more grim as I heard him say:

"Are you sure he was a Muslim? Are you sure he was a Muslim?"

He hung up the phone and turned to me. "This is our worst nightmare."

Last week, Interfaith Youth Core held our sixth conference on interfaith work, Leadership for a Religiously Diverse World. At the opening as I looked out on more than 600 faces, I thought back to our first conference, where I spoke with the 30 attendees about a lofty idea for an interfaith youth movement.

Needless to say, this conference showed that the interfaith youth movement is more than a big idea now. The people paying attention and the goals we set launched the new era of this movement.

By Eboo Patel and Samantha Kirby

Where is the Arab Muslim leadership for peace in the Middle East? It's a question that some people ask aloud, and others only think about - but it's always hovering in the room. I have met and known many in this category over the years, but few with the charisma, intelligence, pedigree and integrity of the man I just met.

Forsan Hussein is an Israeli Arab Muslim, one of the over 20% Israeli citizens who are Arab. He grew up in the northern town of Sha'ab. He was 10 years old when he learned the value of nurturing relationships between different religious communities. As he saw the Muslims in his village build bridges with their Jewish neighbors, he found a life's passion in promoting coexistence, interfaith cooperation and service.

I told a friend that I was off to DC this week for the third meeting of the President's Faith Council, and I got a chuckle and a snide comment in return: "So what do you do after meditating together and trading spiritual insights?" he asked.

Hah! The Faith Council feels more like a second job than a self-enrichment group (the fact that our administrative meeting was held on a federal holiday should tell you something). Our task is to offer recommendations on how faith-based and community groups can better partner with the federal government in six distinct areas: poverty reduction, fatherhood and healthy families, environmental issues, interfaith cooperation, global development, and reform of the faith-based office.

Seventeen more Afghans died yesterday when the Indian Embassy was bombed. This is kind of grim news we have come to expect from Kabul, and Karachi, and, even more depressingly, Chicago.

As President Obama and his team figure out their plan for the battle in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as we mourn all the deaths in those tragic situations, we have to remember that too many neighborhoods in American cities are also battlegrounds.

Too many people caught in the crossfire in Kabul and Kandahar are innocents, too many children over there are seduced into violence because of a lack of options. So are too many victims in American battlegrounds. Too many young people here get seduced into violence because of the absence of alternatives. Just as a perverse version of religion draws young people in other parts of the world into violence, a perversion of territory and tribe draws young people in our cities to tear one another down.

By Eboo Patel and Becca Hartman

Do you know how your religious tradition speaks to serving others? To diversity? I posed this question to a full sanctuary on Tuesday night.

An hour before the talk, I had posed the same question to the youth of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, Bethesda Jewish Congregation, and Idara-e-Jaferia Mosque, who co-hosted the event in Bethesda, Md. From that fruitful conversation, we have planned to author the book "Rabbi Hillel to Malcolm X: Not Only For Myself". (We have the title at least.) We also have half a dozen service projects dreamed up, inspired by the partnership of these three religious communities.

All of that was spurred by the simple questions posed above.

By Eboo Patel and Samantha Kirby

"I had set out to learn about Islam in America. But I found I could not do so without understanding American identity."

A few years ago, my friend and senior leader in the work of religious pluralism, Akbar Ahmed, took on an unprecedented project. He traveled across the country - accompanied by five exceptional young people - to learn about Islam in America.

As one of the world's most prominent researchers on Islam and the Muslim world, Akbar previously conducted an important work -Journey into Islam - where he and several young companions traveled to three major regions of the Muslim world to learn what Muslims think and how they view America.

His new project, Journey into America, is the companion to that.

Seeing Bruce Springsteen is as good an Eid event as I can imagine. His ability to commit himself to every note and word, to write songs of (with apologies to Blake) innocence and experience, to alternate effortlessly between solemn and celebration, to awaken within his audience sacrifice and service ... it is a spiritual experience that I find deeply resonant with the message of Islam.

Today's guest blogger is Zeenat Rahman, the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Interfaith Youth Core, where she oversees policy initiatives and international programs for the organization.

At the opening plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative yesterday, President Obama spoke candidly about the spirit of service that has shaped his life. It is an ethic he first saw in his mother through her work improving the lives of the rural poor from Indonesia to Pakistan. Later in his life, he continued her legacy through his work in Chicago's underprivileged communities.

Last week, I attended the swearing-in ceremony of Farah Pandith as Special Representative to Muslim Communities at the State Department, the first position of its kind. Like Obama, Farah spoke about how her mother, an immigrant from Kashmir, demonstrated through her actions the importance of using your strengths to give back. She believed that every problem must have a solution, and that every individual must take the responsibility to act. She never let her children forget that one of the great privileges of living in America is the opportunity to live out these principles with those who are different than you. Growing up, Farah knew that this imperative was part of being an American - and also part of being a Muslim.

I can't quite believe it when Ramadan arrives, and I can't quite believe when it's gone. It's a bit like summer that way, I guess. Long, long days and then one morning you wake up and there's a familiar crispness in the air and you think, "Where did the time go?"

I alternate between willing the hours forward during Ramadan and trying to live into each moment. There is something about having an empty stomach in mid-afternoon that makes me feel more alive. God knows, for most of the rest of the year, I spend half my day feeling gluttonously full, promising myself I'll never overeat again, and then breaking that promise an hour later.

There is a New Years quality to Ramadan. It's how many Muslims mark time, and it's when we make resolutions. So here's mine: to remember this feeling, of an empty stomach, a more deliberate pace, a connection to the cosmic past, and a sense of responsibility for our collective future.

I came of age in the multicultural movement of the 1990s. We read Cornel West essays and watched Spike Lee films; admired organizations like City Year and Teach for America that brought diversity together around service; cheered Bill Clinton when he spoke of forming a cabinet that looked like America.

But there was a missing dimension in our discussion: religion. I can count maybe five times in the thousands of diversity discussions I had in college that the term even came up. What a failure to pay attention.