Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

As this episode of the Raw Islam Podcast opens Imam Azhar talks about his relationship with Robert “Bob” D. Gary, a former Department of Justice lawyer, who feels that a better understanding of Islam is truly needed, because it is the misinterpretation of Islam and what Muslims believes that leads to hate and feeds into islamophobia.

However, these issues deepen when the question becomes “What do Muslims believe?”

There are so many conflicts with in Islam itself, there are so many people saying so many different things that it can confuse Muslims, and even they start to wonder what it is they believe. There is Sufis, Sunni, Shia, and then there are those that some feel are not Muslim – like the Baha’is, Druze, Alevis, and `Alawis issues. There needs to be a sane narrative, for Muslims to follow; and with so much intrafaith conflict… and people need to stop abusing the faith, any faith for that matter, for personal gain.

Imam Azhar also talks about the 68 bomb threats* that have been called in to Jewish Community Centers (JCC) around the nation, and the Jewish Cemeteries that have been desecrated. How did this trend start? But the bigger question is – how do we bring about an end to this?

The Imam suggests that the simplest way to start the process is to simply get out and meet your neighbors. Go meet your Jewish neighbors, go meet your Christian neighbors, go meet your atheist neighbors, if we can’t meet our neighbors to help elevate their fears of us, what kind of Muslims are we? If our neighbors are living in fear of us and we sleep well at night, what does that say about us?

Imam Azhar levels us with the teaser of the 100-point plan (which you will have to tune in next week to learn more about), he also talks about his work with Mahabbah institute and the O People Foundation, and finally…is there a book to combat the fear of Islam on the horizon?
You must tune in to find out!

Do you have questions for the Imam or thoughts on the show?
Drop us an email at rawislam@vennnetwork.org

*At the time of the recording of this podcast there had been 68 threats, at the time of publication there have been more than 100 of these threats called in.

This was originally posted on Venn Network