Muslim Leadership and Higher Education - Adeel Zeb

Religious diversity on college and university campuses can be a complicated subject. Varieties of traditions and worldviews have been present at institutions of higher education for a long time, yet recognizing and welcoming those various religious identities has not always automatically followed.

Today's episode of ReligionWise features Adeel Zeb, who has served as a Muslim college chaplain on several campuses over the last decade. Additionally, his work has been profiled in a number of outlets, including the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and the Washington Post. This wide ranging conversation considers not only Adeel's work as a Muslim chaplain, but also contemplates the path towards Islamic clerical leadership, pressures towards assimilation among 2nd and 3rd generation college students, and shared characteristics of minority religious identities at majority Christian institutions.

Transcript

Chip Gruen: 0:04

Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host Chip Gruen. If you have comments, questions that you would like for us to address on this episode, or any of our past episodes, you can find us on the web at religionandculture.com. Or you can email us directly at religionandculture@muhlenberg.edu. Today's episode is a really interesting one, I think. It features a conversation with Adeel Zeb, who has, among other things served as a Muslim chaplain at a number of big institutions, including Duke University and the Claremont Colleges. He has been profiled in a number of prominent publications, including the Washington Post and Buzzfeed, and his writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, among other outlets. I don't want to talk too much about his career, because this is something that we deal with in the in the conversation itself. But his path is interesting and instructive for another reasons, he is a second generation immigrant to the US from Pakistan. And so he faced a little bit of resistance, you'll hear him say, in the beginning from pursuing clerical vocation, but then even that pursuit of the clerical vocation, some doors are more widely open than others. And so we talk a little bit about the structures that lead to becoming an imam, and serving in a Muslim community and how that is similar to and different from serving as a Muslim chaplain at a university. Of course, the context for this conversation is early 2024. And one thing that I've been thinking about is we pursue other programming through the Institute. In particular, very recently, we hosted an event in which a community member from the local Muslim community came and talked about wearing the hijab. And as I was preparing for that event, and thinking about it in this context, chronological context in which we live, I was thinking about the distinction between the larger global concerns at this particular moment, Israel and Gaza, of course, but just the place of each religious community in the imagined global world, right. So the place of Islam in the world, the place of Judaism in the world place of Christianity, or Hinduism, right, we have these big conversations, or these big understandings of how these quote unquote world religions function in their own communities in relation to other communities. Like that's one way of having the conversation. Yet, in the end, I kept coming back to the thought that that larger conversation is not unrelated to, but it's not the entire lens for understanding a particular religious community in a particular local context. So for this example, thinking about Muslim women wearing the hijab here in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, is not best understood through the context of that giant global conversation of the place of Islam in the world, the comparison that I keep coming back to in my head, which is not a perfect comparison by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe one that's helpful is if we go back to times of conflict in Ireland, in Northern Ireland, between Catholic and Protestant communities. It was horrible, right that these, the troubles, as they were known, were disruptive and violent and catastrophic for multiple communities. Yet, I don't feel as if the global conversation between Protestants and Catholics were filtered through that conflict, it did not become impossible for Catholics and Protestants to talk to one another in the United States because of the events in Ireland. Now, certainly, there was disagreement. And certainly that disagreement got heated at certain times at certain places in domestic American politics and social life. But it was not the only conversation in town. And I wonder, maybe not what has changed. But how is the situation different that the conversation about local, Jewish and Muslim communities and between those communities necessarily gets filtered through this very difficult situation that the world is confronting in in Israel and Gaza? Again, not a perfect comparison, right that there are certainly ways in which Israel is a different geography and Palestine is a different geography than Ireland is, but what ReligionWise is really interested in doing is thinking about how we think about religion. And I think at this particular moment, we're seeing that people are imagining those religious and ethnic and cultural identities in different ways and putting different stresses on them, even in their local community, then maybe we've seen in other situations, and again, that's not what this entire conversation is about today. But for a chaplain working in a university, as Adeel has thinking about similarity and dissimilarity and harmony and conflict among various student groups maybe requires a little bit more, I mean, certainly requires more empathy and compassion towards their own perspectives of themselves and their communities, but also deserves good analytical, empathetic thought about how best to have conversations. In talking to Adeel, he has a lot to say in his work as a chaplain, about the role and place of minoritized religious community on a college campus, about what similarities there are, between a Jewish community in a predominantly Christian campus like at Duke and what that looks like now, when you have a Muslim minority, that is put in a very similar structural position. So his habit of mind is one to see social similarities there rather than imagine ideological difference. And I think that that's a really instructive perspective to have, and something to think about when we have this very polarized conversation in the world right now. I don't want to step on the conversation too much and anticipate it. But I think his observations about similarities of Jewish minority a generation ago and a Muslim minority now are something that we should all think about and all consider as we think about social structures or social placement of religious communities in our public and quasi public institutions. So without further ado, here's the conversation between Adeel Zeb and myself, I hope you enjoy. Adeel Zeb, thanks for being on ReligionWise.

Adeel Zeb: 7:24

Glad to be here. Thanks Chip.

Chip Gruen: 7:26

So I want to start our conversation by asking you about your career trajectory. You were born in New Jersey, the son of Pakistani immigrants, then spent much of your childhood and early adulthood in Texas. Can you talk about what looks to me from from looking at the way that you've talked about it and from your CV, can you talk about that relatively bumpy path towards becoming an imam?

Adeel Zeb: 7:53

Yeah, sure. So I don't think it's every migrant parents' dream that their child goes into spiritual leadership, I think they're usually more engineered pun intended to towards engineering, towards medicine towards a law, these types of vocations and professions. And I think for me, even until I was untill I was in college, rather, where I got a had an a, a religious spiritual awakening, where I went to Mecca to perform a mini pilgrimage called Umrah not the Hajj, but like a mini Hajj, you can say, and that's where I just, I touched the Kaʿbah the house of God, and I just had a spiritual awakening. And I wanted to go and study Islam in a foreign land, you know, like something mystical. But 9/11 also happened concurrently. And so I was in the largest Baptist university in the world in rural Texas. And 9/11 is happening, you know, and I'm a brown man and son of migrants and Muslim and it's a very precarious situation to be in at best. And so I wanted to again study Islam, and just just learn more closer to God, I guess. And then my dad was like, We don't know how Muslims are going to be treated in this country. So it's better you get a job, a degree you can get a job in. And then after that, you can study a song the rest of your life, right? And effectively, that's what kind of happened. I finished my business degree at Baylor and then I studied what would be equivalent of a modern Orthodox. If you're like the Jewish equivalent to modern Orthodox, Islamic Institute, very traditional. But the the imam who was the main teacher there, he wanted us to learn in America. He said it doesn't it's not, It's less proficient when you have to leave America for 10 years, and then come back to the states have to relearn how do I apply that knowledge from over there over here, it makes more sense to to learn and practice where you are living, right? That was his logic, right. It was a four year program there it was based out in Houston. And then after that program, I went to Hartford Seminary. And that's where I learned more. So sciences and religion, more counseling, more interfaith relations, on that path, led a, an Umrah trip myself, which was pretty fun experience, like 70 people, 70 college students behind me with three other leaders, I went to study the pains and the ethics of what happened during the Holocaust, as a fellowship in Poland and Germany, got to study Islam in Turkey and Oman, as well, and as well as some interfaith relations in Oman and interfaith, as well in Oman. And so I really kind of, it was all part of building myself to meet the community needs, right. And then, you know, currently, I'm a PhD student, and my studies are in comparative religion and diversity, equity and inclusion, and focusing on some of the Islamic elements as well attached to that, I think professionally, right, it was, as you mentioned, a little bit of arduous journey, in that I started out managing a medical clinic, that was very mundane. And then I went into Muslim civil rights defending civil rights for Muslims. And then I had a couple of years working at congressional offices as a staffer there. And that's when I tried to kind of figure this out, right. I do like working with young professionals and young people and getting them motivated spiritually and building those interfaith relations. And that's how I got into chaplaincy. And so 12 years later, I've been working as a as a chaplain, college chaplain until recently, I'm more part time with that with that kind of work and more full time studying.

Chip Gruen: 11:57

So I want to kind of point out, you know, the, the line of your CV that's missing a little bit that, that you've not been an imam, within a community mosque setting, you've always been in these, you know, public or quasi public institutions. And I think a lot of our listeners will be more familiar with the Christian model of seminary training, where a lot of times there is a connection between the educational institution and, and the placement, you know, the the vocational placement, the calling as they would say, but there's not really an exact parallel. I mean, you you describe the place that you went in Houston, but there's not really an exact parallel for training to become, you know, an imam in the US. Can you talk about traditional requirements for serving in the community? I mean, what, you know, what does it take to be an imam in a mosque community, generally? And then how does that translate into the American context?

Adeel Zeb: 12:56

Yeah, so so generally speaking, it's a really beautiful question. And it's a multi tiered, I think multivalent answer. To be any imam, generally speaking, or be a sheikha, for a female, but one is to have a certain level of Islamic knowledge, right. So learning certain sciences, certain level of Arabic competence or level of Quranic knowledge and memorization, certain Islamic knowledge, right and just knowledge in general of Muslim. Two is the community approval. Right? To be like, we want this guy to be our leader, right? Almost like a, like a democracy in a way. Number three, is they have to live a life of a Muslim role model, right? Meaning that so say, say there's like minor sins and major sins. Minor sin is Joe punches Jack in the face, major sin, is Joe kills Jack, you know, so the imam should not be doing major sins. Right now continuously we're doing major standards should be you know, good kind of ethical, moral person living that kind of a moral lifestyle. Those are kind of the three, three requirements, you could say are pretty universal, they will kind of cross cross globally. If you're if you're in a Muslim majority land, you have generally speaking, a joining of mosque and state, if you like, right there within the governmental framework. There is a department or ministry of Islamic affairs or ministry of religious affairs. So the government is the one who is subsidizing the mosque. They are subsidizing the employees in the mosque. They are training the imams, which are learning from government, Islamic universities, institutions, as everything is government. Even the Friday sermons are coming out and as opposed to Sunday, right, the Friday sermons they they you'll find in some Muslim majority countries, if not many, one PDF that is sent throughout the entire country. Everybody is saying the exact same words, right? That level of monitoring right and structure. So, but the role of the of the spiritual leader or imam or sheikha, it's a female. But the role of of an imam is to lead the prayers is is to teach people Quran, give Islamic lectures, give the Friday service, lead funeral prayers, get people married, that's pretty much the the limits of the of the expectations of the community. Right. But when you translate that into America, then the Protestant model starts to overtake Muslim community and the Jewish community and a lot other. So it's not just like religious focus anymore. Now, there is an interfaith relations component. Now there's a pastoral counseling, or chaplaincy component people coming in and talk about their life. Give us advice. Right? So that kind of training, right? Then how do you explain your religion with all other religions, especially when you're operating as a minority? Faith minority, and you're operating as a racialized minority, at least post 9/11 if not before that as well. Right. The other complexity is that in Muslim majority lands, you will find a, like a vast ethnic majority, right? In Turkey, most people are Turkish, in a small community of other people, but most are Turkish to Saudi Arabia most. So your the the level of knowledge for that region can work with that region, when you come to the States, because everybody migrated or is migrating to the United States. You're having to learn a multivalent versions of Islam"s". Right or Islams. How is Islam practiced in South Africa, how is Islam practiced in India, in Arabia and Ethiopia. And that's the only Islam they know. So when they come to you, and you offer them a Pakistani answer, and they're from Ethiopia, they're going to get this guy's always talking about, right. That's what makes the job so much more difficult, because now you're having to work on a more global level, right. And that's why I think my early training, my imam was very important because he taught us a comparative approach to Islamic jurisprudence, because he knew you're in America, and you're gonna get people from all over the world coming to see us be able to know how to pivot and understand where they're coming from. Right. I think another complexity is you having to be a youth director? Or how do you engage the youth the youth kind of motivated about, about spirituality, young professionals, young families, Senior Care, so the expectations for programming are also there are so much more than you would expect in Muslim majority lands right? Now, yet another complexity is the intelligentsia. Right? The all these you know, people coming with Ivy League degrees, liberal arts degrees, and it's higher education institutions, and they want Islam that is also going to stimulate them intellectually. Right, we want to, we want to be able to our minds and our spirits to be hit simultaneous, and our hearts the three tier, you know, trifecta. And so it's, it's very, it's a very difficult position, right. And I think, you know, it's impossible for one person to do I think you have to have a team, right? And there are just some things that are so embedded in people's proxy, that it's difficult for them to to accept, right. So for example, if you have a students coming from heavy Ethiopian, which is and black mosque, right, and they come into college, and then the chaplain there is brown or is white, right? Or is blue whatever. It's hard for them to feel welcomed there because they're so used to having that Black majority Black majority Black culture Black imam, but now they walk in that well, wait a minute, right? Is this am I still welcome here? So you have to kind of fill in that with with more and more staff, I think, both some of the differences between you know the American...

Chip Gruen: 19:11

Yeah, so I mean, and this is something is I was preparing for the interview, and I was thinking about it, and you just tell me, you know, Chip, you've got this one totally wrong. But it also seems and how I read, you know, your activity in, you know, these quasi public institutions, universities, etc. that it seems to me that there is a proclivity for community centered mosques to be pretty conservative. That the, you know, the, that the the funding for the mosque ends up running towards a more traditional form of Islam than what we might expect from say, second generation or more enculturated you know, you know, Muslims in the country.

Adeel Zeb: 20:01

Yeah. So so that kind of, you know, I think I don't think it's, I don't think it's too different than some church group and some some Jewish synagogues or other Jewish groups in that, you know, it's, it's almost like our places of worship have become like the Platinum Card Access, like you have to meet meet the certain level credit score, if you'd like religious credit score, right to get access to the card, and once you get the gift, pay a certain fee per year, and then you can get into the lounge, right. And I think that's what we've created in our spiritual groups, you have to be pray five times a day, you have, if you're Jewish pray three times a day, if you're Christian, you have to go to church, you know, mass multiple times a week church on Sunday, and, and if you don't like that, then you get judged, right? Or there is a stigma that you went before you walk in, you're going to be judged, right. And so that does happen. And so the solutions have been, call it is easy, if you have a really kind of welcoming and opening environment there. Hopefully, the chaplain, if you have a chaplain there they are welcome to open to receive people from all backgrounds, but a solution now has been some people are opening up with a call third spaces or fourth spaces where it's not, it's not the church, it's not your home, it's like a it's like another kind of space, it's a little bit above a community center, it's a little bit more of a spiritual community center, where it's more relaxed feeling and you can just come as you are, and it's not this kind of dress code and spiritual code, you have to abide by to get access and to stay in the stay in the mosque or the church or the synagogue. So that that does happen. And I think like, you know, for me, it's, it's important to go back to my own tradition, right, historically, and traditionally and say, Okay, what are examples of the Prophet Muhammad, so someone welcoming people to come in to the mosque, right? from all backgrounds, who is one person who came in, and he started peeing in the mosque? Right? And his his the prophets' companions were about to just, you know, what were about to handle him pretty good, you know, but what what are you doing? And the Prophet was like, no, wait, let him finish. If you stop him now, there's gonna spray everywhere. So let him finish. We'll, we'll talk to him, we'll educate him. He's, he's he doesn't understand how this world works. Where would a mosque is right. And so I think that's kind of how we have to then open up our hearts a bit more, there is another story quickly about a companion named Abdullah, and he was Muslim, and he was suffering with alcoholism. And he kept drinking, and then, you know, his companions kept like, you know, trying to discipline him and this, that this and and then, finally, they got really mad at him, you know, and Prophet Muhammad said, No, don't you know, that he loves Allah and His messenger? Don't don't help the devil against your brother. Right? So that is kind of philosophy we have to have with people when they're coming to the mosque to our centers. But yes, I mean, you're right, they do generally lean, conservative, and there is a certain kind of style you have to have in a walk, you have to have in address, you have to have, generally speaking, there are some exceptions, but that is the general. And I think it also permeates into the college campuses as well.

Chip Gruen: 23:27

Yeah. I think about somebody in, in your situation, where you're dealing with, you know, people who are fully culturally American yet have this, you know, Muslim identity at the same time, who might be more accepting of, you know, more progressive causes or sexual practice or whatever, you know, whatever the case may be, right, so that you can sort of start to see the hints of kind of Protestant reformed tradition Islam, and you are clearly very popular with that set. Right. So um, it's interesting to me sort of thinking about this trajectory of this moving target of kind of those, you know, those those very strong forces that I think will only be resolved with time.

Adeel Zeb: 24:15

Yeah, I think I have to constantly operate in a Venn diagram lifestyle, right, where I can't be so reformed and liberal that I leave this conservative's groups, right. And I also can't be so conservative that I take off the liberal you see what I'm saying yeah, because yeah, you're either a spiritual leader, you have a flock of sheep. So you can't go too fast with some of the flock are like, they can't keep up but also you can't be so slow that they're, they need to get their food and get their water movement more to that range. You know, that's kind of how I operate. So I, I go to very conservative imam meetings, you know, everybody's very, you know, very strong, intense, you know, I also go to like, other meetings and invariably very liberal and I'm trying to help them too. And I think that that's that's the real work you have to be fluid enough to, to dance in every ballroom or most ballrooms, you know, and some, maybe you can't because he just there's just too much too. You know, if someone comes in says, like, Michael Jackson is is a final prophet of Islam, that's Michael Jackson Muslim group, and I can't be okay, I'm gonna go to their, their meeting a little too much for me to handle, you know, I won't stop them and I'm gonna be like, it's there.

Chip Gruen: 25:32

Right.

Adeel Zeb: 25:33

Right. So there's, like, limits I have myself, but I think it's important for me to be able to go with different groups like that. And I understand I think a lot of that zeal happens because we haven't forgiven ourselves yet, for who we were. And so that anger towards ourselves projects to others, because we still haven't forgiven ourselves for our path life's so to speak, transgresses.

Chip Gruen: 25:57

I don't know, this is this is just my experience, but going in and visiting local mosque community, and which has been very, very open towards the work of the Institute. And, and I've really appreciated their partnership, but I remember sitting at one of these open houses that they had, and sitting and they're very big into sharing food, and you know, and having a very convivial atmosphere, and looking around, and as you describe, having, you know, they had people from from all kinds of different countries of origin, you know, bring their food, so this was the Pakistani food, this was the Egyptian food over here, and this was the Turkish food over here, and, and just looking around at the sort of the United Nations-ness of that, that there all of these different people coming and, and recognizing and holding on to both that, that, that country of origin, culture, and then, you know, clearly coming together in the United States and being a part of this culture too. And, and just personally, I am, you know, depending on which side you count, third or fourth generation, German American, and I remember, you know, when I was a kid, you know, learning German songs and seeing German, you know...

Adeel Zeb: 27:14

Wow!

Chip Gruen: 27:14

...and, and, you know, eating German food, and so forth. And then my parents, and grandparents, like, it wasn't that far back till the German was the language of the, in the household, right. And so from my perspective, seeing that sort of what happens in the second generation, what happens in the third generation, what happens in the fourth generation, and I looked around at this experience at the, at the mosque, and I said, I'm really kind of envious of this right, that there is a way in which the traditional illness of holding on to those divergent cultures was really kind of moving to me. And, and then I, as I thought about it more, I thought, is this what my grandparents experience was right. And if I fast forward, two generations in this community will look a whole lot more like a German Lutheran church does, you know, in in 2024. And so I've just been thinking a little bit about sort of the, that assimilation model versus the conservative and of course, the conservative model holds on to conservative values from the old country too I mean, I don't know, how do you think about that?

Adeel Zeb: 28:24

Yeah, that's a beautiful question. Beautiful summary too productions. I think like, there's. So I think the first batch coming in, right, let's say they take one family, the first batch coming in from the family, they're not trying to preserve culture, that that culture is there is them, they are just being them, right. You can take the person out of the Mald.. Maldives, but you can take the Maldives out of the person, there are still, you know, from the Maldives, the way that they think the way that they that they eat, it's, you know, adjust a little bit, but the core is definitely there, right. And then I think once they arrive, and they see whoa, I'm a religious minority, and I'm a cultural minority, and I'm a racial minority, and...now they become more like, more protective, right. And so I remember taking class on counseling Arabs and Muslims when I was in master's program, and you know, how I think the anxiety level increases, right? Because now they have to protect other so if they were like, Oh, don't worry, you know, Sweetie, come back home at you know, 10pm now they're like, 7pm be home because they're so scared of now you're going to become like them and we're gonna lose ourselves, our culture and so forth. But I think what what gets lost is that the tip of the iceberg remains, but the core is lost. The bottom part of the iceberg iceberg is lost, right? So, you know, you'll have like music, you'll have clothes, you'll have food that anybody could learn, right? Anybody could learn how to dress like, I could wear a German dress, right? I could I could learn how to cook German food. Not that good. But I could learn how to do it. Right. I could listen to German music and start dancing, learn German. Right? But I can't learn the very potent elements of German culture. Maybe it's hospitality, maybe there's certain certain, you know, how do you treat your guests, your neighbors, your family members, there are certain elements of a culture that that are so embedded with in it. But once you leave, they're hard to retain. Right. And I think that's the fear, you know, it's part of the fear. And then again, like, you know, some of the people at the mosque, right, most people in Egypt were Egyptian. And so and so when they come here as like, whoa, as that translates even within the same religion, it's like am I ok with my, my son or daughter marrying the Egyptian person. Are they okay with marrying, you know, an African American, are they okay with marrying a white... it's probably going to happen, but they never even I think consider that's going to happen, you know. And then school systems also, like they're trying to change too now, you know, until I spend time kind of bouncing around the country. So I have friends in Texas and California and whatever else. And so, in Texas, they have, you know, a focus on top being DEI initiatives and trying to erase some racial histories and having more Christianity in the school systems. And in in California, they're pushing for more gender and sexual inclusivity in school systems. And so that also becomes a culture shock, because it's like, well, wait a minute, like, it's not our culture...And so I don't know, it's very complicated Chip. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I always say, to our constituency though, is there's no shame in saying it's complicated. Yeah.

Chip Gruen: 32:05

So thinking about that diversity piece. And obviously, that is really, you know, an important public discursive moment right now for thinking about the diversity piece. There's something and I think, active listeners will have noticed this from you already, that when you've done some comparisons, and we'll talk more about some of that chaplains work here in a minute, but when you've done some comparisons in your chaplaincy, that you've right away gone to the comparison with Judaism, right? With Jewish with Jewish. Yeah, you know that how this presents itself in Islam is not so different than how it presents itself in Judaism, and I and I think, on the surface, I think that people might be like, Oh, that that's very different. Like, why would you do that? But you think about it a little bit more carefully and it starts to make sense, right. So can you talk about the affinity or the similarity, whether it be socially, whether it be the minoritized status, whether it be that the orthopraxic, can you talk about the similarity of those concerns and how you've noticed it in your chaplaincy work?

Adeel Zeb: 33:09

Yeah. So um, yes, very much so. So in my master's paper, final paper, I studied the Hillel and Chabad models of Jewish chaplaincy, and compared those maybe juxtaposed with the Muslim Student Association and Muslim chaplaincy today. It was like a past, present, and future analysis. Right. And so the Jewish chaplains have been here for about a century, right. About 100 years or so, and very similar objectives, both intrafaith in the Jewish community and also I think interfaith with the Muslim community. Right. And the founder of Hillel, the rabbi founded Hillel. So the Jewish college student when they come to college, they put their head into the sand like an ostrich between their legs. Right? And they're just so so shy and they lack confidence in their Judaism and their Jewishness. Right. And I think that is it's very, that mirrors a lot of the experience that Muslim college students have today. Right there's just very much scared, ashamed, in a way, fear that it will decrease their social utility, right? They will descend not ascend by saying I am Muslim. Oh, negative point, you know, and that's, that's, that's, that's a similarity but like a time travel similarity, right? I did notice that Jewish and Muslim college students, they both want to focus more less on exclusivity and more on inclusivity less racist and more inclusive than their their predecessors, the generations. What's also fascinating was that Muslim college students and the parents of current Jewish colege students had couple of similarities themselves. The Muslim students now and then the parents of the Jewish students had similarities in that the Muslim students wanted to have halal food, which is like, you know, like blessed food and drained acertain way before, upon slaughtering before slaughtering. And they also wanted to have centers centers for Muslim life or a Muslim house or something on campus. And the Jewish counterparts, the parents of the Jewish students also wanted to have kosher food, and they're big on on Jewish centers, as we see on many college campuses today in the states have Jewish centers. And they're pushing to have everyone but pushing to have kosher kosher food as well. So I think as a minoritized, minoritized community you have to the system that systemically is very similar, right, you have a halachic way of life, right. And you have like a sharia way of life. Not some scary sharia law bad thing, but like meaning, holistic kind of spiritual life. And you have two groups that are minorities within a majority Christian country. And then you have like a shared history, right? So some things are happier, some were sadder together with Muslims and Jews, but they've been in minority situations before where they've kind of suffered. And so there's almost like a shared like a shared generational trauma. But an interfaith shared trauma, like specifically I'm thinking about the Inquisition that happened in what is now Spain, by Queen Isabella, and King Ferdinand. And so, you know, when they're operating in similar ways, even the way that the rabbi's are ordained and the imams are ordained. It's a very, very similar concept, you know, and if you look at, and even watch some there is was there was a dating, there's a marriage show called Jewish Matchmaker on Netflix, and there is a modern Orthodox Orthodox Jewish family and a couple and they're courting right. You could literally put Muslim there, and Muslim girl and a Muslim guy there and a Muslim mom there, and it would be almost the same thing, almost exactly the same thing. It's it's it's mind blowing. Right. So there's there's a lot of similarities. I think both in the jurisprudential form, there are similarities in how the theology becomes a theoproxy. And there's similarities in being a fearful minority, both on campus and also in general, especially right now.

Chip Gruen: 37:34

Yeah. So I mean, that fear. You know, just to there's a story that you tell in some of the your work that's out there that I just want to call out to, to sort of illustrate that point. That while you were serving as Muslim chaplain at Duke, there had been an initiative to make Muslim students feel more welcome by integrating the call to prayer more fully into the religious and spiritual life of the college. And that that didn't go so well. Could you describe that story and your reaction to it and how it fits into this model that you're presenting?

Adeel Zeb: 38:13

Yeah. So what happened was, is we were at Duke University, I was the chaplain there and director of Muslim life and the chapel at Duke, which is like the heart of the campus, really, symbol of campus heart of the campus. Their senior staff invited us to do the Muslim call to prayer which is called the Adhan, at The Chapel Bell Tower on Duke's campus. And it was everything was going really well. The problem happened when they released they had a press release. And when that press release was released, Reverend Franklin Graham, who's Reverend Billy Graham's, son, very famous preacher, also in North Carolina, Franklin Graham is, or it was, at least at the time, and Fox News had a joint ultimatum that if you're an alumni and are donor to do call Duke and tell him to cancel the call to prayer, or take our money away, for Duke got inundated with, you know, phone calls and in law school and basketball team and all these kinds of problems. And it was a big media mess, right? And all the media, I mean, Pakistan, London, CNN and everybody was just talking about this issue. So we were getting death threats at our office. Something like you know, We heard you are doing the call to prayer from the chapel bell tower, Over my dead effing body. You know what I mean and I can't wait. You know, and we had police kind of camped out at our center for Muslim life and we had a you know, police got car camping out piece circulating the area patrolling the area. So it's very, very stressful time and it was kind of like I have to find a way to calm my staff and my students down Right, I have to find a way to work with senior Duke administration to how we can handle a situation. And then ultimately, how do we message out to the media that pay like, we're gonna change our minds, it's it's kind of helping reverse decision or so that it kind of calms down and no one loses their mind. And there are some kind of terrorist attack on us. So we ended up having to do a solidarity event, a lot of non Muslims came on campus, someone did like to stand by me song was kind of cute. But but we were operating inside the chapel, we never even came outside because it was too dangerous. Some sniper, right. But then after that, it was okay. For a few weeks. And then a few weeks later, two Muslim students from, three Muslim students from from UNC and Chapel Hill were shot in the head, at their homes. And so, you know, then it became another kind of issue of okay, how are we going to heal my own students who have like a transference now that that could have been us three weeks ago, also trying to help those students pro bono because they don't have a chaplain at UNC because it's a public school. So going over there having lunch with their students trying to calm them down calm my own students down. And then my own kind of mental and emotional health after going through that crazy month, right? Yeah, it was, it was tough time. And I think nowadays, the student, you know, that was kind of one to multiple horror stories. The first one was, I think, 9/11 during college, this one was during Duke, and then and then now there's a lot of problems happening because of the war in Israel and Gaza.

Chip Gruen: 41:34

Yeah. So I want to pick up, we'll return to this place. But you mentioned solidarity, and receiving these messages of solidarity from other groups on campus. And you know, when you're looking at affinity groups or minor...again, minoritized groups that there is oftentimes, I think an expectation of that solidarity, or what is often referred to now as allyship, among these different groups. And one of the places where you see this a lot is on issues of gender and sexual diversity on college campuses. And this is obviously another one of the big, hot button cultural war issues that, you know, is sort of being amplified by some news outlets. And I wonder, you know, on the one hand that you have, sometimes relatively first or second generation, Muslim students who are a part of your organization, on the other hand, this expectation of allyship, this has to cause friction, right? I mean, that that allyship is not always natural, particularly when you can have a minor...minoritized group that nonetheless, might be extremely conservative and its social views.

Adeel Zeb: 42:57

It does cause some tensions. And it raises some questions, right? You cannot work in liberal arts colleges for 12 years. And you cannot study at a liberal arts college, or university without asking questions on almost anything in your life. Right. And so I think a question arises. So social and gender diversity has been there for many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years. Right? It has, it has manifested in different ways as well throughout the world. But the identity is LGBTQIA+ identity, that is a newer construct, right. And it is a very western construct. And so to, for example, to label someone as trans, and in their country, they don't call it trans. That in itself was kind of colonization that makes sense, right? Because they don't call themselves that they have different names for what they experienced. Right. So what I mean by that is, I think that it's a far nuanced conversation that has to happen. I think, having having this paintbrush like, Oh, this is bad, this is good. I think that I think that's uninformed. It's not going to come across, anywhere receptive, right. There has to be very nuanced conversation about what we're talking about, with sexual ethics and gender diversity, whatever faith background we come from, it has to be a very nuanced and very compassionate and very inclusive response to how we approach these topics. But yes, it does cause a lot of friction. I think a lot of times because we're programmed to think that way. And I think to be honest with you, a lot of it is also hot button issues become hot button issues, because they don't they don't pertain to us, right? But us meaning people who are in the power, right? So for example, abortion is a big hot button issue, right? If I'm a straight white, rich Christian man, I can make abortion a big issue, because I never have a baby inside of me. Right? Generally speaking, I can make LGBTQ an issue because I don't like people with that same sexual identity, right? But I'm not making having affairs with my partner an issue, because I'm doing that. Even though biblically, it's a sin religiously, it's a sin to cheat on my spouse, because I'm cheating with 10 other girls. I'm not making that issue, because I'm doing it. Does that make sense?

Chip Gruen: 45:34

Yeah.

Adeel Zeb: 45:34

So it's easy to focus on another person who is going through that, as opposed to examining myself and trying to, you know, work on myself.

Chip Gruen: 45:43

So, and I think that I think the listener will hear that, you know, you have been in this kind of very, I mean, more traditional kind of chaplaincy role, you know, for the last decade, a little bit plus, and now your work in more recent times has really pushed towards these sorts of DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion issues. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm curious as to whether you see that as a shift. Do you see that as a change? Or do you see that as a logical outgrowth of what you've been doing all the way along?

Adeel Zeb: 46:21

Probably both? Yeah. But I don't, I think it's a combination. Right. So I think there's a combination of experiential learning through through chaplaincy, right? Like, for example, I am studying Quran I'm studying this, that, and this, but until I have a lesbian, Muslim, international student in my office, talking to me about how she wants to kill herself, because of her, her confusion about our identities, converging. Right. Now I've reached a higher level of in my position, do you understand what I'm saying? Because now I'm really have to do hard work. If somebody comes in to me and says, Can I eat McDonald's? Is it halal or not? This is a very low level, when I have a student of mine who's a who's a migrant, who is is gay, and who is having suicidal ideations and attempts. Now my ministry is at a higher level, right? And it's more difficult, it's more nuanced, it's more more precious. So I have to figure out ways that can help this person, get them to a healthier, spiritual and emotional and physical place, right. And then I think, in my studies, right, studying all these classes, studying LGBTQ studying feminism, studying decolonization, studying disability studies, I become far more aware of what people are going through academically, you know, research, why study studies and studies wise what's going on? Having classmates who are going through all these issues, right? Then my ministry enhances as well. So I think it is a change, and I think it is an upgrade, right? Because now I'm able to minister to those more proficiently than I wouldn't have if I just went straight to ministerial route for a longer period of time.

Chip Gruen: 48:17

So I want to, you know, we've talked a lot about sort of these roles on the college campus, but another big part of your life. And you can you can tell me if you agree with my assessment of this, but another big part of your life has been that you have, you know, been featured in major publications like The Washington Post, and Buzzfeed, the Associated Press, you've published several pieces in the Huffington Post, been a guest speaker at governmental functions, like President Obama's interfaith summit, like there's clearly a desire here right to share, right to be, I mean, for lack of a better word, a public Muslim, intellectual of some kind, right to be to be a part of that conversation. What do you feel that your role is in the public conversation on religion and religious diversity? How have you found that conversation? And how have you contributed to it?

Adeel Zeb: 49:07

Yeah, I think, um, you know, one thing and when one of my one of my senior chaplain told me when I first when I first met earlier jobs, she actually mentioned that, you know, the people who are really good at this field, are the ones who can come into a situation and make it a better one who can come in and have compassion, and just elevate the grace, the compassion, the character, the morality, the ethics, of whatever environment they're in? Right. And I think that's, that's the role of spiritual leaders, right? Is how do you make the situation a better one, right. You say you have this problem on campus, these groups aren't meeting, that's not happening. Okay. Well, how can we make these people meet or isn't as another option that they can meet? Right? Is there some way we can find some way to have some kind of common ground and come together and have dialogue. Right? Because I think that's, that's, that's really important because when we become too stagnant, and there's no dialogue, there's no exchanging of ideas, not understanding then it's hard to have peace around us. Right. And so I, I think just having grown up the way that I did, and even some things you don't know on my resume, but I did go to a lot of Christian schools when I was younger, and went to kindergarten, that was Catholic, eighth grade, that was Pentecostal, Baylor, you know is Baptist and I worked at different Methodist schools, and so I've seen a lot of you know Christian diversity. And I think you know really finding that compassion and that love and helping people come together is so important. At all times as much as we can.

Chip Gruen: 50:50

And you see that then not only sitting with somebody in your office, but you see that as being exhibited through that role in, you know, public presentation, or even in print.

Adeel Zeb: 51:02

Yeah. Because, okay, so Chip, it's almost like when we were growing up, even before 9/11, our representation, our meaning Muslim representation, our meaning Brown, Muslim man representation was pretty bad. Like it was pretty bogus, right? Even movies. Like, Back to the Future, right, you see that opening scene, the Libyans, and they're coming and they're shooting down Doc Brown, you know, it's the again and again, and then the first iteration of Aladdin that came out. Disney's Aladdin, you know, Arabian Nights intro song, the first iteration of that song was, Where we cut off your hands, if we don't like your face is barbaric, but hey, it's home, Arabian nights. So it's there's so much depiction, even way before 9/11 of Muslims being these horrible, I say the men, being horrible people and women being these victims. And that was kind of the the impetus to for colonization was to free the women and give them Islam and so forth. But that's another kind of topic. But I think it's very important for Muslims to have positive representation in the media as much as possible to counter as much as we can have what's happened before. Now, having said that, it's gotten a lot better. If you notice the trend of depictions of Muslims being in these terrorist roles, young Muslim men being in terrorist roles has decreased a lot. You'll see the Muslim, Muslim men and women being superheroes now in the Marvel and DC Universe. And so it's it's trending in a positive direction. But yeah, it's been a lot of work.

Chip Gruen: 52:41

So speaking of work, I want to just finish up and we're sort of reaching near the end of our time. And goodness knows there are lots of other conversations, we could have talked about them over the course of things that you've encountered in your career. But there is a one of these articles I mentioned earlier, that was in Buzzfeed, and it was quoted one of your students, and the student said, and just I want to, I want you to react to this just as a way of kind of conclusion, Adeel's voice...So it was a quotation, begin quote, Adeel's voice is important because the most important thing we can do right now is assert ourselves as Americans. A lot of us are second generation, and we're no less American than someone who's Christian. We need to own the fact that we are Americans, close quote. I wonder how, you know, how, how is this a moving target? You know, how is this, this, how is this different than 20 years ago? I mean, you've talked about the kinds of, you know, unfortunate signposts, you know, that we've had, whether it be 9/11, or more recent contemporary events. Tell me a little bit about your students and, and American identity and Islam generally an American identity, because we can pay lip service to it that, of course, there is no religious identity test to be an American citizen. But I think in popular popular discourse, this is a hard one for some people get their heads around.

Adeel Zeb: 54:16

Yeah, and I think this I think it's from a meta level, right? We're thinking about Islam in the West, right? Islam is a religion and West as it is as a direction, right. But, or a way of life and a direction. But I think, you know, when we look at Muslim majority lands, like I mentioned before, there, there is mosque and state if you like they are married. In Muslim majority lands, most of you could say most are many. And so it's very difficult for people to separate their culture and their Islam in those lands. Just like it's hard to separate chocolate milk once you've mixed the Nesquik with the almond milk or the oat milk, whatever, once it's gotten in, you've it's hard to take it out, right. And I think that's where the generation that come after the migrating generation, they're the ones who can think critically. Right? And they need some help thinking critically, right. And I think that's where chaplains kind of come in. And then we say, okay, hey, listen, that's a cultural practice but it's not a Islamic practice, right? That's a political practice of a region. But it's not an Islamic practice. I think that's probably where the student is coming from, is it you're trying to find a way to extract the Nesquik from the milk. But they can't do it? Because that's what they grew up with.

Chip Gruen: 55:41

Yeah, it's an interesting quote to me too, because she says, on the one hand, we need to assert ourselves as Americans, which is like convincing everybody else, right. And then at the end, she says, We need to own the fact that we are Americans, which is like an internal dialogue.

Adeel Zeb: 55:57

Yeah.

Chip Gruen: 55:58

Right. So that you've got both of those things going on. And in both, at least from the students perspective, seem to be, you know, part of the struggle.

Adeel Zeb: 56:06

Definitely, it's you can't escape it. Right. It's like, everybody asks you, where are you from, that they've asked you, within the Muslim community, and then externally as well. So where are you from? Bro I'm from New Jersey. All right. Okay. So but then that that won't work. Right? If I had blond hair and blue eyes, okay, cool. What part, Jersey Shore...fist pumping, like, like we're, you know, and that is not going to fly? They want to know, like, what, you have to give some other country of origin. Otherwise, I'm not going to keep investigating you. And so that's part of that internalization that that student was kind of talking about was like a certain No, I am American, and then also thinking about Yes, I am. I am also American also always is a catch yourself thing. Oh, yeah. Pakistan. No, I are you really Pakistani or? Right. And then, you know, if you ever if I ever go to Pakistan, then it's like, woah, I'm so different from these people, this is cra...this is bananas. Right? But then also in America, there's sometimes I'm just like, well, I'm so different. But then also, I'm like, Well, is it, am I different because I'm more a practicing Muslim? If I wasn't at practicing, how different would I be? You know? And so, it's, it's complicated, right? Then, when we when the call of prayer thing was happening? That was a big question. Right? Like, is America a Christian country? And then is, is Duke Christian's school, and then go going in deeper is the chapel only for Christians? Right. And so that those are questions that we have to think, in a heal...in a healthy manner, ask ourselves, right. When we ask the question, like, there's there is this philosophy of a separation of church and state, right? In the States? Why is it called church and state? Not religious center or spiritual center? Or the question, the statement itself is already Christian biased right? So not that it's a good thing or a bad thing, it's just how it is, you know? And why is why is Christmas a federal holiday? Separation? Why is it a federal holiday? Right? Why is the youth why are Sunday's the USPS store closed? Or service closed? Right? So there's questions to ask ourselves, you know, and to kind of critique and I could dig deeper into that question, but I think it's, I think it's important. There was an interview that I read, that came out of Harvard University, and there was a Muslim college student from Georgia. And she said, you know, we as Muslims in America feel like second class citizens. Right. And so I think that's maybe part of also the psychology behind that student that you quoted statement of kind of like asserting within us, No, this is our place like anybody else. And two is, want to make sure you know that as well.

Chip Gruen: 58:58

All right, Adeel, thank you so much for sitting down to talk to me. This has been great.

Adeel Zeb: 59:03

Thank you so much, my pleasure.

Chip Gruen: 59:07

This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced by the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding of Muhlenberg College. ReligionWise is produced and directed by Christine Flicker. For more information about additional programming, or to make an inquiry about a speaking engagement, please visit our website at religionandculture.com. There you'll find our contact information, links to other programming and have the opportunity to support the work of the Institute. Please subscribe to ReligionWise wherever you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you next time.