I find the way that most people, especially Muslims, often engage in interfaith dialogue to be not only hollow and counterproductive, but also mind numbingly banal.

Here’s why. The question posed to me was about a remark made by Swiss scholar of Islam Dr. Tariq Ramadan in a series of satellite lectures hosted by the Berkley Center given in April 2007 (Dr. Ramadan is not allowed in the states because his visa was unjustly revoked just before he was to teach at Notre Dame in 2004). Dr. Ramadan said that it is hard for Muslims to benefit from interreligious dialogue since many may approach it as if it were a competition of sorts (for an interesting take on this, see Dr. Sherman Jackson's blog). For example, if we converse with a community of another faith, we often approach such conversations with a threefold mindset: lecture others about our faith, smile and nod while being unreceptive to traditions different from our own, and secretly hope that the non-Muslim with whom we crossed paths will sooner or later convert to Islam.

To this comment, I made three points.

First, for the most part I agree. There are certainly communities of any faith who say they engage in and believe in interfaith “dialogue,” but whatever it is that they think they engage in can hardly be called dialogue at all. This point can definitely be applied to Muslims, but is not unique to our community. To me, interreligious dialogue had for a long time seemed insincere because it seemed to lack the necessary basic humility of either community to simply listen. Fortunately, I have met countless people who are genuinely interested in learning more about faith through others. With such people, like Eboo Patel's Interfaith Youth Core around, interfaith activism is hardly dull, but rather inspiring, provocative, and quite beautiful.

Second, it is important to note that in a post 9/11 context, most Muslims felt threatened and obligated to reach out to communities of other faiths to present Islam in a more accurate light, especially in late 2001. It is a point of pride for mosques (and synagogues and temples and churches) all over the country to join other faith communities to break bread or do community service work. However, when I combine the urgency that many Muslims in the community felt around that time with my first point, I can’t help but attach some level of disingenuousness to the interfaith dialogue. If interreligious dialogue is to be a mutual exchange and understanding between communities, then it is fair to say that Muslims engaged (and may still engage) in interfaith work in a largely defensive posture or simply for the sake of being able to say we do interfaith work. There was this overwhelming feeling that we had to show others that Islam isn’t what so many had come to believe on September 12th, 2001. The further we get from the awful events of September 11th, the more constructive and productive interfaith dialogue has been.

Of course this second point is not unique to just Muslims: I have many friends of other faiths who feel that educating others is often the driving force behind their interfaith activism. This is not a poor reflection of those who are active in interfaith work, but does shed light on the different motivations behind such work. Given Georgetown’s Jesuit identity and natural inclination towards interreligious dialogue, I managed to avoid looking at it through the lens of September 11th. We, people of faith or not, must continue to ask ourselves how well do we actually know one another? After all, one of my favorite verses from the Quran (I hope it’s not blasphemous to play favorites) is “Oh people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes that you may come to know one another.” Surah 49:13. Whether you believe the Quran to be word of God or not, I fear that we have long been in egregious violation of this fundamental tenet of society.

My third--and most important--point was that Muslims seem to talk a lot about INTERfaith dialogue, but there certainly is not a whole lot of INTRAfaith dialogue. Interfaith? We don't even talk to EACH OTHER. The stunning lack of intrafaith dialogue is not only evident between Sunni and Shia Muslims, but I believe it to exist on two other levels: gender and nationality/race. I have met with, heard, and read some Sunnis claim that there is no difference between these two sects. But when the majority (Sunni) claims that there is no difference, it functions only in a hegemonic and insulting manner towards the minority (Shia). There are even some college campuses that are divided between sects. There are Muslim Students Associations that claim to represent every Muslim but really ought to be called Muslim Sunni Associations. But I like to distribute responsibility. Sunnis need to reach out to Shia and Shia need to reach out to Sunnis. We must engage each other just as openly and willingly as we engage those of other faiths. Interfaith work is great, but there is something fundamentally wrong about Muslims who engage other faiths for a photo-op yet refuse to engage each other.

On gender, much has been made about the standing of women in Islam and that Islam oppresses women. This is entirely untrue and I refer you to Hadia Mubarak’s blog. But what is true is that Muslims and society as a whole oppresses women. Domestic violence is certainly not unique to the Muslim community, but it is a serious problem that needs to be confronted. I am critical of western notions of feminism because I believe it imposes its own notions of liberation onto women in other parts of the world while altogether rejecting the potential role religion can have in the gender debate. However, Islam would be more relevant in the gender debate if Muslim women had a more prominent role in our communities. This requires give-and-take; frankly, it is so much more legitimate to hear a Muslim woman speak of Islam as a source of empowerment for women rather than hearing men address the subject. We often point to the fact that Dr. Ingrid Mattson is the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and that Muslim countries have elected female executives (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia) before even the United States—but it’s not enough. Just as we have failed to live up to the Quranic verse I referred to earlier, we have failed to live up to the famous hadith of the Prophet in which he said that “Paradise lies under the feet of one’s mother.”

Finally, there are many mosques around the States that are home to people of many motherlands. In pictures, you often see black, white, brown, and yellow praying side by side. But the reality is that there are many mosques that are not very open and feel like home to a select few, whether by race or nationality. I know it will take some time before most mosques can be like the ADAMS Center in Virginia or the Islamic Center of Southern California among others, but I hope we can get there. Again, this problem is not unique to the Muslim community; after all, in his famous speech on race, Barack Obama said that “the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.” On this point, I think of something Georgetown Professor John Esposito once shared with me. He often meets Muslims who say that he should become a Muslim. His response? “Well, if I become a Muslim, then I’ll have another problem: which mosque do I go to?”

And yes, I said all this at dinner.