Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation

On September 11, 2001, after the World Trade Center attack, Patel calls his friend Roy, a former Rhodes scholar classmate who now works on Wall Street. “‘You realize that what you’re doing is more important than ever now,’” says Roy (125). When the pictures of the hijackers are published, Patel is stunned that “[t]he shock troops of religious extremism were young people” (126). He studies the life and radicalization of Osama bin Laden. Before becoming the 9/11 mastermind, bin Laden had been radicalized gradually after falling under the influence of several charismatic, radical teachers in various schools.

Patel quotes the writer Bruce Lawrence, on bin Laden: “‘there is an oft-overlooked dimension to bin Laden’s personality, a talent that is absolutely central to his macabre success: he is a brilliant youth organizer’” (130).

Next Patel examines the case of Yossi Klein Halevi, author of the book Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist. Halevi, fueled by his grandfather’s stories about the Holocaust, believes that the world was continually conspiring against the Jews. After becoming radicalized under the tutelage of persuasive, charismatic teachers, Halevi feels that the only way for Jews to survive was to become soldiers. He admires the bombings perpetrated by the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and finds heroes in every extremist Jewish organization. He was radicalized under another faith, but the process for him and the 9/11 hijackers was similar.

“We humans know violence well. It is a part of each of us […] It was precisely the reason I was drawn to religion in the first place,” writes Patel (136). He remembers a statement Muhammad made to his soldiers after winning a battle. The prophet urged them to remember that they had won only a “lesser jihad” (137). The greater jihad was the continual battle with their natures and their appetites, including the appetite for violence.

Patel examines the common complaint against religions—and Islam in particular—that holy texts command violence and it should not be surprising when adherents then become violent as they obey what they believe to be divine orders. Patel believes that violence comes from the head and heart of the interpreter of the words, not from the words themselves: “There are indeed explicit statements about violence in the scriptures of most major religious traditions. But to think that the statements of a religious text suddenly morph into armed reality is to have a profound misunderstanding of religion” (141). 

The people most susceptible to manipulation are young people, particularly if they feel they have been oppressed and humiliated, and “religious violence is the product of careful design, manipulated by human hands” (142). Charismatic zealots provide young people with a chance to become heroes as they join an ancient struggle to fight against the anti-religious forces of evil and “build their institutions around the desire of young people to have a clear identity and make a powerful impact” (142). They focus on recruiting at two of the places young people spend the most time: schools and websites. 

Patel recounts an experiment conducted by the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif. Sherif’s researchers had a goal of sowing hostility between the boys at a summer camp. The boys were divided into two groups called the Rattlers and the Eagles. The groups then participated in athletic contests to build solidarity among their group while making them antagonistic toward the other group. They also gave preferential treatment to the Eagles, inviting them to a party early and allowing them to eat all of the desserts before the Rattlers arrived. Fights quickly broke out. The next stage of the experiment was to attempt to reverse the hostility, which was accomplished by putting the boys in situations where they had to work together to solve problems.

Patel feels that “[t]his same dynamic defines our world today. The totalitarians put their resources into building youth programs. The pluralists haven’t” (147). 

Patel meets with a civil rights lawyer named Shehnaz. Kevin thinks they will be a good match because Shehnaz is Indian, Muslim, and beautiful, but Patel is also interested in her work. She is preparing a First Amendment and religious discrimination lawsuit as a result of a suburban council harassing a mosque foundation. After a couple of dates, Patel believes he has found “the one” (153) and plans to move back to Chicago.

In 2002, Patel takes over the work of the IFYC in Chicago when his friend Jeff Pinzino accepts a job with a foundation. Patel’s job will be to continue to expand the group’s network of allies and secure funding. He meets with Bill Ayers, who tells him, “‘Find the smaller stories that tell the larger story of your movement, and always begin with one of those’” (157). As he attends more interfaith meetings, meals, and activities, Patel meets more people who offer to help, or ask for the help of the IFYC. However, his fund-raising efforts are frustrating and amount to little. Securing funding for religious initiatives is difficult.

Then he meets Zahra Kassam, a young Muslim woman at the Ford Foundation who sees the potential in the IFYC mission. In the summer of 2002, she tells Patel that the IFYC is being considered for a $35,000 grant. After being accepted for the grant, Patel is able to leverage the attention and credibility of the gift to secure two more grants. He raises over $100,000 in the space of a few months.

Patel looks for his first full-time employee. He hires a woman named April Kenze, who takes a pay cut to join the IFYC because she believes in the work it is doing. April proves to be adept at what she is hired to do and more. Patel still believes that hiring her was the luckiest break the IFYC ever got: “Even more than April’s skills, it was her heart that made her a perfect fit for the IFYC” (161). As an Evangelical Christian, April feels that it is her duty to serve. She and Patel have an early discussion where she admits to being uncomfortable, since they are both members of religions whose followers believe that theirs is the only ultimate truth. Patel believes that it is this very fact that models what the IFYC is about.

One of Patel’s early challenges is bringing other religious leaders onboard. They often feel that it is hard to get young people to pay attention to their own religions, let alone free up time to study others. Patel finds that “[r]eligious leaders are not particularly concerned about losing their own identities, so they do not consider involvement in interfaith work a threat to them. But they have a whole different set of concerns when it comes to their youth” (165). Several times, Patel speaks with religious leaders who say that their ultimate goal is to help their children become better at their own religions. The theory of the IFYC work sounds good to them, but they wonder how it will be possible for the kids to avoid simply arguing about who gets to go to heaven, if they all believe that they have the true religion. Patel says that the key is to focus on how each religion approaches values, not on the specific theological elements that can cancel one another out.

Patel finds eight young people who become the 2002-2003 Interfaith Youth Core Chicago Youth Council (CYC), which is

where I saw the IFYC theory come to life. On more than one occasion, I watched them intervene when adult interfaith groups began drifting into useless theological and political disagreement, bringing them back to constructive discussions based on shared values (169).

In 2003, the first National Conference on Interfaith Youth Work is held in Chicago. The IFYC decides to collect the papers that are presented into a book called Building the Interfaith Youth Movement.

Patel and Shehnaz get married, even though they are from different branches of Islam. They visit Patel’s grandmother in India a few months before the wedding. When he was eight, he had promised Mama that he would marry an Ismaili, and now he is worried about disappointing her. But she is supportive and happy for them. At their wedding, Patel gives Shehnaz a ring that is inscribed with a line from a poem by Pablo Neruda: “‘Rest with your dream in my dream’” (173). 

In February 2004, Patel listens to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf give a sermon at New York City’s Riverside Church. Afterward, Patel tells him about the IFYC. Imam Feisal invites him for a visit the following evening. Together, they talk about how to “renew Islam” (176) by reaching out to young people. Later in the year, they attend the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow Conference. Three themes emerge:

Islam had to be a big tent for all believers, not a small room only for the purists; Muslims needed to contribute to all aspects of human civilization, not obsess exclusively over a handful of causes; and American Muslims needed to be just as concerned with the future of the country we lived in as about the places of Islam’s glorious past” (177).

Patel knows that he has finally found a community he can call his own. As the book ends, he reflects on the continual need for pluralism: “We have to save each other. It’s the only way to save ourselves” (180).