The Sheikh and the Preacher
Rev. Dr. Rutt's essay, The Sheikh and the Preacher, appears in Part III, Healing Divides, of this anthology edited by Celene Ibrahim and released by Wipf and Stock Publishers in 2019.
Rev. Dr. Rutt writes how this essay came to be... "In 2016, as part of my doctoral studies, my class visited the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) to hear Sheikh Yasir F. Fahmy speak on "The Toxicity of Othering." His topic was focused on the dangers of seeing our brothers and sisters from other faith traditions as 'the other,' as different from us. As he spoke, I noticed that many of the sentiments he was expressing were similar to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I arrived home, I downloaded the transcript of the talk from their website and researched the similarities. This essay was the result of those efforts. It just took my breath away to see that no one faith tradition holds a monopoly on truth. Rather, we recognize it as the unifying element across diversity." |