2009م - 1444هـ
In July 2009, Rick Warren, a popular evangelical Christian pastor was the

keynote speaker at the ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) conference.

Pastor Warren’s speech was welcomed by many American Muslim

organizations, leaders and community members. This is because the

expression of friendship by such a leader in a conference attended by 45,000

Muslims was first of its kind in America. His speech was perceived by

American Muslims as a positive step in helping to bridge any

misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians of America.

However it can be easily argued that to many American Muslims, his coming

to the conference signified a symbol of their acceptance in the American

society. While Pastor Warren’s friendly presence may have sent that

message, the contents of his speech underscored how American Muslims’

efforts to position themselves in the American society may have been falling

short. This was clear from many of his comments. For example, during the

past few years American Muslim leaders’ mantra has been to demand

tolerance in response to the intimidation that Muslims have suffered on

various fronts. However, Pastor Warren reminded Muslims that “Tolerance is

not enough. People do not want to be tolerated, they want to be

respected. They want to be treated with dignity. They want to be listened

to.” This therefore was a clear wakeup call that American Muslims should not







have merely stopped at demanding tolerance, whereas respect and dignity

should have been a right that American Muslims should never have

compromised on.

American Muslims have also complained about the media’s bias toward them

in recent years. While American Muslims have been trying to fix that image,

their efforts surely have fallen short. Pastor Warren further validated this by

stating “And since today much of the press is actually clueless of what

you believe, and as to what I believe, and then there are frequent

mischaracterizations in the media, frequent ignorant generalizations,

generalizations are generally wrong, and frequent stereotyping, of all of

us”. This told American Muslims and their leaders about how far they are from

“clueing in” the media and others to prevent, or at a minimum curb such

mischaracterizations and ignorant generalizations.

Among other things, American Muslim leaders have also been focusing on

“Interfaith Dialog” as one of the avenues to bridge gaps with other faiths in

America. However, Pastor Warren’s suggestion that in such matters action

goes further than dialog was more appealing. He commented: “And I will tell

you that I am not interested in interfaith dialogue, I am interested in

interfaith projects. There is a big difference. Talk is very cheap. And you

can talk and talk and talk and not get anything done.”