Hello, my name is Iqbal Akhter, and I wanted
to welcome you all to our dialogue, our work
on sort of interfaith relations and the future
of covenantal pluralism, I suppose, here in the
United States and around the world. So we're
very honored to have our first guest of this
series, who is Professor coming to us. He has
multiple hats, but he's also the Director of
the Interfaith Studies Program here in Miami,
and I'll let him introduce himself. Hi, everyone,
and thank you so much, Professor Iqbal, for having
us here. My name is Mohamed Homo -Invesh, and
I'm the Director of the Jaffar Institute for
Interfaith Dialogue and Education at Miami Dade
College. I'm also Professor of International
Relations here at FIU, as well as the University
of Miami. Again, glad and honored to be here.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. So as we start,
can you talk to us a little bit about your background?
You know, sort of where you grew up and your
academic sort of background as well. Sure. Yeah,
I was born in Iran in northwestern part in the
city of Tabriz. So I speak Turkish, Azeri Turkish
as my first language. Then I went to university
in the city of Tehran. I did my bachelor's degree
in linguistics. And in the late 2000s, I came
to the United States to pursue my master's and
PhD studies in international relations here at
FIU, upon which I went to Columbia University.
I did a program there, then went to South Africa,
did a postdoc there, came back to Louisiana State
University, taught there for two years. And since
2020, We established the Jaffer Institute for
Interfaith Dialogue at Miami Dade College, and
I've been doing that work ever since. Okay, that's
wonderful. What made you get interested in interfaith
dialogue? Was there an event in your life or
a perspective or a series of events that motivated
you to pursue this line of research and work?
Yeah, so I started my sort of graduate intellectual
work in hardcore international relations. I was
focused on security studies. I did my dissertation
on proliferation and so this was very sort of
realist type mainstream security studies. And
then, you know, I just realized that the canvas
of international relations needed to be broadened
out and we could include few more items in the
mix because identity politics was also on the
rise. It looked like there was a transnational
movement towards more identitarian sort of international
relations and Islam had made a comeback into
international relations. So I figured in order
to have a more holistic view on the globe we
needed to include religion not just as a theological
issue but more as a civilizational issue in the
way we study international relations and so I
sort of branched out and removed that you know
hardcore security studies shrink wrap and just
allowed myself to be exposed to new type of ecosystems.
I got involved with the Muslim community here
in Miami and that was instrumental in sort of
pushing me forward in that direction. And then
that work got more institutionalized after the
Jaffer Center here at FIU was established with
which I was initially affiliated and then that
work here at FIU and Professor Mizbahi's work.
sort of led the way to establishing the Jaffer
Institute at Miami Dade College. The Miami Dade
College was very embracing of the idea and I
think we've done tremendous work over the past
four or five years that we've been around to
bring a little bit of this wide world. to our
students at Miami Dade College who might not
have exposure to that type of experience if they
were to pursue their academic studies. So what
impact do you ultimately hope that your program
has? Well, we want to hopefully engender a sense
of intercultural curiosity. and maybe literacy
into our students to show them that this is a
big world and there's a lot of things that are
going on in the world that unless you actively
seek them, you might not get exposure to. And
from a purely functional perspective, I always
tell our students at MDC, that this is an essential
skill. This is not a soft skill anymore. This
is something that will equip you to become marketable
in a global workplace. So although it looks good
on your resume cosmetically, but beyond that,
if you want to be successful in your professional
careers, you need to have some sense of agricultural
interfaith, curiosity, and literacy. So when
we're exposed to a globalized work... place,
you can sort of masterfully navigate that terrain
and interact with people that will most likely
come from different religious, ethnic, linguistic,
national backgrounds. I think it teaches a lot
of different types of skills as well. I mean,
it teaches communication skills. It teaches social
and emotional, cultural awareness, being able
to translate. across cultures and just being
more socially conversant with different perspectives.
And I think that that has a lot of different...
you know, effects in terms of people's careers.
Yeah, because oftentimes, you know, people get
sort of trapped in their little comfort zone
and they cocoon themselves. And that, I mean,
I think doing that, they deprive themselves of
a lot of opportunities to grow, you know, intellectually,
to grow character -wise and also professionally,
like I said. So, you know, at Miami Dade College,
we're part of SESI. Change -making education
and social innovation has three pillars at MDC,
one of which is the Jaffa Institute, the work
that we do, but we also have the Earth Ethics
Institute and Institute for Civic Engagement
and Democracy. Holistically, we're trying to
bring that non -curricular dimension to our students.
Like I said, I think... This is the type of work
that at least our demographics at MDC might not
organically get exposure to. So speaking of that,
I mean, I think there's some challenges that
there's a lot of miscommunication, I think, among
people of different sort of faith traditions
and cultures. When you see what are the major
challenges the students have in terms of I guess
engaging with the interfaith work that you guys
do? I think some of the challenges include the
media ecosystem that we have in this country
because our work is largely focused on the Abrahamic
tradition with even more emphasis put on Islam
as a more underrepresented perspective. I think,
you know, we sometimes think that in this country
we live in a sort of rich media ecosystem. But
when it comes to choice, when it comes to the
mainstream media, you know, Islam's image is
still in the West in general, maybe in the United
States even more so, is crisis driven. So a lot
of students don't get access to a more organic...
narrative or understanding of Islam. So we're
trying to move beyond those cliches and introduce
the Abrahamic tradition of which Islam is an
important part as a civilizational entity. So
that's why most of the work that we do doesn't
deal with theological stuff per se. We're trying
to build bridges, and as bridge builders, I try
to focus mostly on sort of cultural dimensions
and aspects of Islam, like Islamic philosophy,
Islamic art, Islamic fashion even. We've done
an event on architecture. culinary traditions
in the Muslim world. And I think those are the
issue areas that have the most potential for
bridge building and instilling a genuine sense
of curiosity in our students. So when we look
at the world as a whole today, what are the major...
clashes that you see between sort of faith traditions
that more dialogue could perhaps help to promote
peace. So what are the kind of the major What
are the directions in which interfaith dialogue
at a global level can go? I think oftentimes
what happens with interfaith dialogue is that
it sort of degenerates into a debate. Because
dialogue has certain prerequisites. that differentiates
it from debate. So you need to be willing to
be self -deprecating to a certain degree. You
need to come to dialogue with an open mind and
be willing to be wrong. And so a lot of times
when we focus purely on theological stuff, people
are just not willing to have that. openness of
mind and maybe even heart that is a prerequisite
for having an authentic genuine and productive
dialogue. I think the fact that our global politics
is saturated with identity issues doesn't help
us either. So we have a highly polarized globe
right now and that makes our work even more challenging.
So tribalism, puritanical ideas, they're on the
rise across the world, not just here in the United
States, which makes our work challenging, but
also much more impactful and valuable. And I
think the trick is to find champions for this
work. And I think those types of people do exist
in every society and community. I mean, here
in South Florida, we've been very fortunate to
liaison, to work with, you know, folks, religious
leaders and secular folks as well from different...
faith traditions and they've been contributing
a ton to our work. As you know, you've been part
of that ecosystem here in South Florida as well.
I think this could be a little incubator for
us to further develop our ideas and become a
role model for this type of community work and
bridge building in the community that could be
emulated elsewhere in the country. Absolutely.
Do you think that there is something unique about
South Florida that has sort of helped to create
this ecosystem? I think that has a lot to do
with the community, community leaders. It also
has to do with... with champions of this work.
I mentioned Dr. Mizbahi, Dr. Jaffer, and so forth.
So these are people who have been quite instrumental
in, I think, laying the groundwork for people
like us to come on board and further expand and
deepen that work. I mean, this type of work needs
those types of... initial sort of pushers and
creating momentum for it. And we've been very
fortunate that we have that kind of momentum,
both at the academic level from FIU, from Miami
Dade College, but also at the community level,
all the religious institutes that we work with,
be it mosques, temples. and churches and so forth.
And once you have that critical mass of people
who are dedicated to this work genuinely, then
I think it just gets much easier and over time
it sort of creates this positive feedback loop
that I hope and I think we're in the process
of. You know, one of the things that it's easier
to do interfaith work in a place like... the
United States, there's a lot of religious freedom,
there's a lot of pluralism. When you're looking
at other places, and particularly in the Muslim
world, in Iran, in Pakistan, other places where
there are minorities, but religious freedom is
not something that is understood the way that
it is in the West. How do you build this sort
of work in those societies? Well, I think this
work has to be contextualized based on the organic
realities of every society, every country, maybe
even every community. So I don't think we have
a one -size -fits -all recipe for how to do this
work. This work that we do that works quite wonderfully
in South Florida might not be applicable to the
United Kingdom, for example. I think one of the
challenges Islamophobia and Islamophobia, which
is a major barrier to building these types of
bridges, manifests itself differently in different
societal ecosystems, but political realities
and also geopolitics is as part of it. Now, artificial
intelligence, these large language models are
also part of this ecosystem. So I'm a little
bit hesitant to tell folks what to do, but I
think once we establish the baseline for how
to have an authentic dialogue and generate a
genuine sense of interfaith and intercultural
curiosity, then maybe half the battle is already
won. Then it's the question of tweaking it and
making it work with the... existing circumstances
and conditions on the ground. And then you need
to have people who are well -versed in their
community, the realities of their community,
but who are also well -versed in terms of different
faith systems. We have in Florida folks who are
genuinely interested in multi... faith and interfaith
work because they have genuine curiosity about
other faith systems. So to find those people
is key and it's, by the way, not easy because,
like he said, tribalism and these puritanical
tendencies are on the rise and that makes, you
know, finding those folks very difficult or well
-versed in multiple faiths and cultural traditions.
But I think in general because You know, it's
so easy to travel these days and to have exposure
to other countries and cultures. Maybe that could
be something that could contribute to enriching
this work and facilitating this work. I mean,
for me personally, I've traveled to over 100
countries and that's been very instrumental in
sort of instilling in me the self -confidence
but also hope. that people are people. They're
functionally, for the most part, the same. It's
just that we sometimes tend to overemphasize
the differences that could sometimes be actually
minor and inconsequential at the expense of the
commonalities of our humanity. I think that's
the thing I've also noticed. we're all sharing
a very common human experience and even in situations
where literally there is no connection with the
Varsa language, verbal language at least. you
can communicate and you get a sense of who people
are just by their actions, by their facial expressions,
by their attitude. There's so many other ways
to be able to read and connect to people and
share those experiences. I mean, it's kind of
odd that back in the day in Andalusia, we had
this interfaith ecosystem where Muslims, Jews,
and Christians worked so collaboratively together.
And this was not even about interfaith tolerance.
They viewed each other... as vehicles for enrichment.
And I think we'll be lucky if we could emulate
that Andalusian experience that you see in the
south of Spain in cities like Granada, in Sevilla,
in Cordoba in the 21st century. And again, at
least on paper, we should be able to emulate
that experience on steroids in the 21st century.
So why is it that we're not able to do that?
Part of that has to do that we had a lot of these
puritanical approaches to religion, which are
very modern, recent phenomena. So maybe getting
back to that traditional type of understanding
religion will go a long way in facilitating that
type of interaction. I mean, my perspective has
always been that part of the challenge also is
that, you know, so much, even in not just, you
know, the work that I do in this tradition, but
in other religious traditions as well, people
who are colonized especially are still... they're
still responding to their colonizers, even though
the colonizers are gone. So that's one part of
it. And second is that they're constantly trying
to defend their faith and trying to articulate
it in a way that makes it, that is justifiable,
I think, to an audience that's not their own.
And then also... they don't necessarily have
the access to the intellectual tradition itself
to create an organic creative space for the development
of ideas within the civilization itself. And
I think that that is a big challenge. So when
you don't have the confidence that your civilization
has something unique to tell the world, that
you're not constantly in response to someone
else that's denigrating the tradition, you don't
have that ability to be as creative, I think.
And I think that's one of the challenges. I also
think another challenge is that for a lot of
people, they probably overmix religion and their
culture. Because I think it's much easier to
build interfaith bridges if folks could sort
of separate out the cultural dimensions of their
faith. Because religions, when you strip them
down to their core, they're very easy. Like,
you know, think about Islam. It's the easiest
thing in the world to become Muslim. You just
profess. Oneness of God and the fact that the
Prophet Muhammad is his messenger. So you're
already part of that ecosystem. But when you
talk to Muslims about what Islam means, they
sort of accessorize it with a lot of cultural
stuff. And for a lot of these folks, they're
not quite aware of where religion, like Islam,
ends and when their cultural background begins.
in case they come from Pakistan or Iran or what
have you, they inject too much cultural stuff,
too many of their personal experiences into religion.
And that makes our work very complicated. So
I think it would be good for folks to understand.
and to be able to differentiate between the DNA
of their religion, religion of Islam has a very
simple DNA, and separate out, at least suspend
the cultural accessories of their religion and
enter the interfaith dialogue ecosystem in a
very simple manner. I think that will make our
work much easier. And this is what I tell my
students when I teach courses on Islam. that
need to understand the chromosome of Islam. And
then learn about other things over history that
have been sedimented onto this religion. But
don't let that historical process impede your
ability to connect with other faith traditions.
We have this notion of transcendental unity of
all religions. And that becomes... achievable
when you understand that the kernel of truth
in the Abrahamic tradition is largely the same.
Absolutely. One of the challenges also, I know
that you're working on many of these topics.
How do you see the role of technology in AI?
affecting interface dialogue and intercultural
communication? Well, I think that needs to play
out its full potential. But based on my initial
experience with AI, especially with large language
models, we have the problem of algorithmic biases
that are baked into a lot of these systems. So
you have all types of algorithmic biases. in
these large language models and that has to do
a lot with their pre -training data, most of
which has been harvested from the internet, mostly
from Reddit. So the type of biases that you have
on platforms like Reddit get amplified in the
large language models and a lot of folks, a lot
of our students as well, they treat platforms
like ChatGPT as completely neutral and unbiased
and that becomes their primary source of getting
information. So that is one challenge. But there's
also other types of biases, you know, there's
selection bias, there's non -algorithmic types
of biases that have created the problem of Islamophobia
in these large language models. And those are
issues that need to be addressed. I think the
Muslim community has to be more proactive in
addressing some of those pathologies that are
in those platforms, both at the algorithmic and
non -algorithmic level, because these platforms
will shape our... our cognitive reality and a
lot of the ways in which we come to socialize
with the world because remember a lot of Gen
Z, the way they socialize with the world is not
through physical interactions anymore. So they
heavily rely on the cyber domain and on these
platforms. So that potentially could be a major
roadblock. in the way of the work that we're
trying to do. So that's why I've been a big advocate
of creating some connectivity with these LLM
platforms to expose, to flag, and then try and
come up with solutions to address some of these
challenges like Islamophobia, like anti -Semitism,
and so forth that you see on those platforms.
Okay, great. Last question. What do you want
the community to take away from the work that
you're doing, the research, the community activism?
What are some important things that you think
should be takeaways for the people that you're
trying to reach? I think it'd be great if the
community was more... actively, proactively engaged
and involved in the university ecosystem and
there are a variety of ways they could contribute
to our work. The simplest of which is to come
to our events in different capacities as audience,
as speakers, to our workshops and also I think
they could also give us feedback in terms of
what it is that they want us to do. to build
those bridges. Because a lot of our work is organically
community -facing. Obviously, our primary audience
is our students, but our objective ultimately
is to create these organic links between the
community and our students. And I think that'd
be a huge contribution by the community if they
could do that, but they can also contribute more
institutionally to our work. different types
of support that we could benefit from. We could
always work with more religious institutions
in South Florida as well. And I mean, I think
as takeaway, like I said, the model that I always
have in my mind is Andalusia and to somehow recreate.
that ecosystem in the 21st century. And that
ecosystem obviously had a core of academics and
intellectuals, that part of it, but then they
were part of a larger community that was socialized
into thinking about their existence in the world.
in terms of an interfaith reality, intercultural
reality, and viewing folks from other faith traditions
as sources for mutual enrichment, for opening
new horizons and new avenues for development.
And for our students, I always tell them that
they need to develop their character muscles.
And this is the type of work that will... definitely
help facilitate the development of those character
muscles, which are essential to become successful
in any capacity, professional and non -professional,
that they will encounter in their lives. Absolutely.
I think that's a very important point that a
lot of the work that we do is critical, I think,
thinking about character and virtue. It's like
we're also trying to develop better people and
when you actually have a deep spiritual core
and you have an idea of you know ideas of justice
of compassion these things are part of your character
this makes the work not only much easier but
also becomes something that is creative, generative,
self -sustaining, and it just becomes part of
your everyday life. So it's not something that's
separate, interfaith dialogue or intercultural
sort of competency, but it becomes part of who
you are and how you sort of move through the
world. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone is...
born intolerant towards other religions or other
people so this is something that you learn and
then unlearning it becomes complicated but that
is what we're trying to do to give them another
opportunity to re -socialize themselves into
a not a different reality but a more interfaith
you know, reality, hopefully. So there's this
process of unlearning that for me is very problematic
because unlearning means that you need to be
willing to leave your comfort zone. And for a
lot of people, that's difficult. But my advice
to students is that, you know, your comfort zone
is essentially a trap. And it takes some courage
to do that, but the rewards are absolutely worth
it. in the long term. And we learn our best by
challenges, by failures. All those things actually
help us to grow as people. So it's really important
to be able to have a bit of challenge out there
to develop who we are as people. Well, thank
you very much, Dr. Humayunbash. It's an honor
and a pleasure to have you as our first guest
in the series and look forward to continuing
to work with you. Thank you so much. And I hope
this is the beginning of a sustainable series
of podcasts and hopefully YouTube channel. And
this is an amazing initiative. And I want to
applaud you for taking this initiative. Thank
you. Thank you.