Dr. Dilara Sayeed and Shariq Ghani discuss mobilizing Muslim communities and fostering interfaith collaboration to combat voter apathy, address hate crimes, and strengthen democratic engagement across diverse communities — even those that pray differently or vote differently than them.
In this episode of Faith in Elections, host Adam Phillips speaks with two Muslim leaders about their civic engagement efforts. First, Dr. Dilara Sayeed of the Muslim Civic Coalition shares her work on combating voter apathy, including passing the Wadee Resolution to address rising hate crimes. She emphasizes the need for resilient, engaged communities.
Next, Shariq Ghani from the Minaret Foundation discusses his work in Harris County, Texas, fostering multi-faith collaborations to improve voter access. He highlights the power of interfaith connections in bridging divides and strengthening democracy. Both guests show how solidarity can uphold shared values and counteract divisiveness.
Guest Bio: Dr. Dilara Sayeed serves as the President of the Muslim Civic Coalition. Dilara’s story goes from Headstart to Harvard, and through public school systems. She is an award-winning teacher, social impact entrepreneur, and civic justice advocate. In 2021, Dilara was appointed by Governor Pritzker to the IL Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes (CDHC). Dilara has served on the Transition team for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, as well as Advisory Councils for Mayor Lightfoot and Illinois Comptroller Mendoza. She is a board trustee for the Field Museum and Indo-American Democratic Organization.
Guest Bio: Shariq Ghani is the Director of Minaret Foundation, an organization focused on developing multi-faith relations to change the world through advocacy in the areas of food insecurity, child welfare, and religious freedom. For the past 11 years, Shariq has regularly spoken at faith centers, conferences, and educational institutions on topics ranging from American Muslim identity to faith-based advocacy and spirituality. In addition to teaching Islam through sermons and lectures, he works with clergy, policymakers, and law enforcement to provide insight into the American-Muslim community. Shariq has a bachelor's in history from the University of Houston and completed his graduate studies in homeland security from the Bush School at Texas A&M. He is currently pursuing his master’s in negotiation and conflict resolution with a focus on peacebuilding from Columbia University. Shariq's passion is finding intersections between communities for collaboration and mutual growth and loves to connect with like-minded people over chai or burgers.
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[00:00:00] Adam Phillips: Every election season carries with it hopes, dreams, fears, this time again, rampant division. If we're honest, it often carries with it a big dose of apathy. I'm remembering back in February of 2020 before COVID shut the whole world down, I was knocking on doors trying to get voters to turn out for the California primary, Super Tuesday. Every few doors, whether it was a woman or a man, personal faith, no particular faith, people from all walks of life, they just wondered if their vote even mattered.
We're going to get into why votes matter and why it matters to lean into not just interfaith collaboration, but intercommunal conversations around civic engagement and why showing up at the ballot box matters for all of us. Today we have conversations with two Muslim leaders facing similar challenges to uphold American democracy for all. We'll learn how Shariq Ghani of the Minaret Foundation and Dilara Sayeed of the Muslim Civic Coalition encourage civic engagement inside and outside of their communities.
I'm Adam Phillips, chief strategy officer and co-host of Faith in Elections, a special pre-election series highlighting the work of people working tirelessly to build bridges across diverse communities and uphold free and fair elections in a season marked by chaos and division. Before we hear from Shariq Ghani out in Texas, let's start at home with Dr. Dilara Sayeed of the Muslim Civic Coalition, where with her help, the people of Chicago recently experienced a big win.
Dr. Sayeed is the president of the Muslim Civic Coalition and has an award-winning background as a teacher, social impact entrepreneur, and civic justice advocate. In 2021, she was appointed by Governor Pritzker to the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, where she is dedicated to turning voter apathy into civic action within the Muslim community. Faced with rising Islamophobia and political disillusionment, many Muslims have been questioning the impact of their vote. To combat this, the coalition utilized the Faith in Elections Playbook Grant to focus inwards on our Muslim community to bridge the gap between faith and civic responsibility. Welcome to Faith in Elections, Dr. Sayeed.
[00:02:18] Dilara Sayeed: Thank you. Thank you for having me in this pivotal time.
[00:02:20] Adam Phillips: Yes, it's so pivotal. Before we get into the of the moment, I'd love to just pull back just a little bit and ask a big question, which is, what brought you to this work?
[00:02:32] Dilara Sayeed: I am a Chicago kid. I always say the city and this nation has given our immigrant family the best that we could have, and also the worst that we could have. As I grew up, I was deeply bullied by neighbors and kids at school, but at the same time opportunities for our parents, my parents, to be union members, to have good jobs that brought us into the middle class, allows us to have the home, a shelter, food, clothing, jobs, and then move into the middle class. You know that sometimes many bullied kids become either teachers or police officers. I became a teacher. I became an 8th-grade US history and government teacher.
[00:03:25] Adam Phillips: Amazing.
[00:03:26] Dilara Sayeed: I know you're laughing at 8th grade. It's the best year to teach because they want what we want. They want respect. They want to be given options in life. They are little adults, exactly as we would want them to be. In teaching US history and government, I learned how much many communities didn't have voices, had to fight for their voice, and also the struggles they had to go through.
I also learned how many communities were completely invisible from the American story. I never saw me in all the years that I was teaching in the story of America. If I saw some of my colleagues, it would be through a stereotypical lens. I realized it wasn't going to be just teaching alone, though that is so critical and I loved every year and every day of it. It was going to be changing policy, the way we saw each other as Americans. That's what brought me to the civic work.
[00:04:31] Adam Phillips: We all contain a myriad of identities. I often describe myself as a dad, a spouse. Of course, I'm white, but my family lineage really is Appalachian. It goes through Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia before it gets back to Europe. One of the primary identities that I cherish about myself is that I'm a person of faith. As a Christian, I'm a minister. I often say that my faith compels me into this work. I'm curious for you. You too contain a myriad of identities. What about your own faith? What is it in terms of that role? How does your faith play in how you approach your civic duty?
[00:05:06] Dilara Sayeed: You identified as a minister. I am just an everyday layperson. Yet both of our faiths compel us to do this, right? Our faith doesn't say do this if you have the degree to do it. It doesn't say do this if you are called on through a seminary to do it. It says fight for justice and fight for peace wherever you are, every day that you are here on earth. many people use faith to talk about their individual worship. Certainly, there is that piece of it.
Our faith calls us to do it collectively. I think of Surah Al-'Asr, a chapter near the end of the Quran, our scripture as American Muslims. I read it both in Arabic and English. It says, certainly by the time humankind is at a loss, except those who do good and encourage one another to do good. Those who work for justice and right and encourage one another to work for justice and right.
You see the two parts of it. One is me, myself and my responsibility to be good and work for justice. The second equally important part of it is to call and to be with community of people who do goodness, justice, and what's right. Our faith calls us to do it, whether we're an everyday person or a minister or following the footsteps of the prophet.
[00:06:43] Adam Phillips: As your work really focused on internal community mobilization at the Muslim Civic Coalition, what does that mean for you? Why are you focusing in on the internal dynamics and the great work that's there?
[00:06:58] Dilara Sayeed: It's interesting because you may say internal, but the intersectionality of the American Muslim community is where race, ethnicity, faith, class really come together. The largest component of the racial background of American Muslims is Black. The second is Asian and Arab is third. We are doing this work, we could say internally, but I'm doing it with Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Why? Because we're working with Black communities of both the Christian and Muslim faith.
We're doing it with the Hispanic Federation. Why? Because we're working with the Latino communities who happen to be Christian and Muslim. Internally, our goal is that the communities we do work with are resilient, but they are often marginalized. How do we ensure they have voice? How do we ensure that their needs are met? How do we ensure that they thrive in America? It is through our vote. It is through social justice work, but it is through civic justice work as well.
[00:08:11] Adam Phillips: As a Chicagoan, this has been front and center for so many of us in terms of the upcoming election. Of course, Illinois is not a battleground state. A lot of the pundits, a lot of the news outlets, a lot of the special interest groups are not focusing in on a place like Illinois and certainly Chicago. We did host the Democratic National Convention this past summer, and there has been a very public conversation if you will, if not protests around issues at play. I'm just curious as a Chicagoan focusing in on the work that you just described and the intersectionality of it as well. What conversations and challenges are folks facing during this election season?
[00:08:51] Dilara Sayeed: I think what we're facing as a challenge is apathy. I think you are right, because for multiple reasons, frustration of our government, suspicion of our government. Of course, people don't think we might be important enough. Hey, who cares? Why vote? What we are sharing is actually this is the perfect time to practice flexing our civic muscle. It's the perfect time to increasing voter engagement and education.
It's the perfect time to get as many voters out to vote as possible in states like Illinois, certainly, but also states like Wisconsin that are right next door to us and we work very closely with where the electoral college matters. In Illinois, the popular vote will matter. How many votes do we get out from our communities? In places like Wisconsin, next door, the electoral vote will also matter, which is how will they vote for the two candidates that are most likely to win in the electoral college? That's a critical point.
A challenge we're also facing is also an opportunity. Which issue, what do we surface, what's very important? Certainly, for many of us in America, the redirection of our tax dollars towards funding the killing of children and families in other parts of the world, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Syria, in any place where our imperialism is present is a problem. But so is mass incarceration and things like the recent execution of Marcellus Williams, just right next door in Missouri to our other state in the southwest corner of our state.
Our issues like student debt reform where students and young families are trying to make it and struggling because of housing prices and student repayment and many of the other issues. There are these challenges and we just have to keep saying that apathy is not an option. Not voting it's a privilege we don't have because voting is a privilege we do have and we have to utilize it.
[00:11:15] Adam Phillips: Quite specifically, I'd love to hear how the Muslim Civic Coalition is working around the election. I know you all are working on education, voter registration drives, and engaging around apathy. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the details of what you all are working on.
[00:11:31] Dilara Sayeed: Thank you. Through a grant from Interfaith America and through some of our other partner grants, we've been able to really do a robust education and advocacy program. One example of what we've been doing is we've had many imams and scholars at universities, et cetera, because in Islam, we don't necessarily have a hierarchy system of faith, but there are deeply respected voices in our communities.
For example, Imam Ubaydullah Evans of the South Side of Chicago from Brownsville did a 45-second video of us. He simply said, "I used to have an apathetic attitude. I used to say, I don't want to get involved in voting. I don't do that work. Then my friend said to me, perfect, keep being apathetic because your apathy is what they're counting on. Your apathy is exactly what they want so that they can put in place whatever policy to ensure people like you and I are always on the outside." He said, "That flipped my switch and I vote and I vote every single year, not just on presidential years and I vote in every single election and I ensure that my voice is heard."
What a powerful message from an imam in the community, a Black leader in the community, a young man in the community for us to hear. We had about a half a dozen amazing videos by imams and scholars. We also have graphics where we have different community leaders across the nation actually speaking to, leaders are voting, are you? They give a quote, we have a photograph and we make sure that's plastered everywhere. A social media campaign, a video campaign.
Then of course we work on canvassing in communities where we know have high percentages of the intersectional groups we work with, whether it's Black and Muslim, whether it's Latino and Muslim, whether it's Asian or Muslim or whether it's Arab and Muslim. We've been doing phone banking, canvassing, and workshops. I'd like to give you one more example. Yesterday we were at a workshop in the Western suburbs, a third space, the Mohammed Webb Foundation that has many families that are second and third and beyond generations of American Muslims.
We did a civic justice workshop. We came at this from the American Muslim story. We asked each family to put where on the timeline their story intersected. My story intersected in 1957 when my father-in-law came plop into a city named Normal, Illinois. He was so different than the other residents at Normal, Illinois. They actually put him and his little young family on the front page of the Bloomington Pantagraph to say, "Dr. Mohammed Mahmood Saeed moves to Normal, Illinois." That became front-page news. That was right in the midst of the civil rights movement and it was right in the midst of him raising his little family.
How powerful is that when we feel ownership of our identity as Americans, we can put a pin where our family started its American story and then we know to own being American, we make society better for all Americans. That's what civic justice is. That's what being civically engaged. Everyone talks about, are you civically engaged? Civically engaged simply means you care about your neighborhood, you care about your city, you care about your nation and you will help make it better for everyone.
[00:15:33] Adam Phillips: As you do your work with the Muslim Civic Coalition within the community, but also across the city in the Chicagoland suburbs, I'm wondering if you could share one unique story about how you've seen this work impact an individual? Someone whose life has been changed by it or who has even changed your own life.
[00:15:53] Dilara Sayeed: I want to share the story of Hakima. About a month and a half ago, we did a civic justice and voter workshop on the South side of Chicago, the Ephraim Bahar Cultural Center run by Imam Omar Karim, a courageous man who serves his entire community on the South side. He asked us to do this workshop. We talked again about the American Muslim story.
Many community members in that area story goes back hundreds of years. Sometimes they're not sure exactly when it started and intersected in the timeline. We talked about why it's important if we see problems in our society to be the ones to help solve those problems because people who usually are facing the problems actually know the solutions to those problems and can be one of the most important people in getting to that solution.
We finished the workshop with ensuring everybody was registered to vote. Workshop finishes, we're having some soul food that the cultural center has put together. We're all chatting with each other and a young woman named Hakima comes up to me and says, "I love what you said. I am registered to vote. I've always voted, but it's not enough, is it?" I said, "What do you think?"
She said, "I'm going to do more. Can I commit to like three hours of phone banking a week just to get other voters out? Because I'll tell my family and friends, but we got to get other voters out." She's a young teacher, working as a teacher during the day. Now for the last almost two months, regularly, without a day of missing it, she does three hours to five hours of phone banking for voter registration and voter engagement every single week.
[00:17:51] Adam Phillips: We're so focused on this election in November. Yet what I've really appreciated about this conversation is you've continued to elevate the intersectionality of these issues, the contextuality of this moment. We're also coming up on the year anniversary, not just of October 7th and the horrific slaughter of Jews in Israel, but we also know that it's the one-year anniversary of everything after 10/7, including very closely to home, the disturbing murder of Wadea and the injury to his mother, Hanan Shaheen, here in the Chicagoland area.
I would love for you to talk a little bit about your work with the coalition on this Wadea Senate resolution. We know that it's about honoring the freedom of expression, the clothing and appearance and heritage of Arab, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Black, Asian, all Americans. I'd love for you to get into that a little bit and how we might honor his memory.
[00:18:54] Dilara Sayeed: Today, Wadea Alfayoumi, six-year-old boy's name, will forever be in our US congressional law books and resolutions. it will be throughout US history. What saddens me is the six-year-old boy had to be brutally killed for us to say his name like this, for us to know him like this. That's one of the things we're seeing over and over again, the growth in identity hate, faith-based hate, race-based hate, gender-based hate. Our country seems to be embroiled in this just as the world seems to be embroiled in this.
On October 14th, 2023, when Wadea and his mom were stabbed by their landlord who knew them, who played with this little boy and gave him treats to be radicalized by the hate that he saw online, by the hate that he saw spewed by political leaders who were being divisive, to then ring their doorbell and when they answer to stab them. Wadea was stabbed 26 times, a six-year-old baby boy, stabbed 26 times and bleeding in the arms of his mother, simply because he was Palestinian, simply because he was Muslim.
We did two things as a coalition, especially one headquartered in Illinois, in Chicagoland. We asked for a Senate hearing so that hate of all kinds could be addressed in our nation and the growth of hate could be addressed so that Wadea could be honored. We asked for the passing of the Wadea Resolution, which as you said, honors all ethnic backgrounds, all racial backgrounds, all faith backgrounds, and the fact that we have a right as human beings to express our identities, whether we are wearing a keffiyeh or a yarmulke or a cross necklace around our neck, that we should have that right as Americans and our political leaders and our systems should protect that right.
It took a long time and we had the congressional hearing about 11 months after the death of Wadea. You saw that. The hate crimes that erupted during a hate crimes hearing. Literally, we had Congress people look at Hanan Shaheen, Wadea's mom, and pretend she didn't exist there, not say a condolence to her. Then to dehumanize the Arab American expert witness, Dr. Maya Berry, on the stand.
I think people saw that. People now saw it in practice from the senators. Then a week after that hearing, Senator Durbin's team, our team working nonstop, Congresswoman Delia Ramirez's team working nonstop, then passed a unanimous Senate approval of the Wadea Resolution. How cool is that we now have this on the books? How bittersweet is it that it had to come at the death of a little boy?
[00:22:27] Adam Phillips: It's such a tragic American story. It's close to my home. We were moving back to Chicago in those weeks, and we have a boy the same age. Just to think about the levels of hate, even in our own city. Can you share a little bit about how the Senate resolution works?
[00:22:46] Dilara Sayeed: A Senate resolution is a non-substantive resolution that's passed. It's a statement by our highest legislative body, the Senate, saying that this crime is a hate crime. Wadea Alfayoumi's murder was tragic and avoidable, and that we honor the outward expression of any type of clothing or face, whether it is a turban, a hijab, a keffiyeh, a yarmulke, or a cross necklace. Every day human beings, knowing the resolution exists, saying we just passed a resolution that brings Americans together, I refuse to be part of the hate.
[00:23:39] Adam Phillips: I loved how you put it. You said whether you wear a keffiyeh, a yarmulke, a cross, you could be wearing a crescent, you could be wearing a turban. We also know that addressing Islamophobia can also impact how we fight back against anti-Semitism or against hate in any of its forms. I'd love for you, just as a person of faith, as a community leader, as I think you called yourself an everyday person, how do this as a collective work towards freedom?
[00:24:07] Dilara Sayeed: We are all connected. We talked about intersectionality just a bit ago, that every person of faith also has a race. Every person of faith also has an ethnicity. There's intersection between that. Across all of us, we are connected. In America, anti-Black hate is directly connected to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to anti-Palestinian or Arab hate. It is all connected because it means that someone can walk around, go to work, go to the park with their kids, and be part of this community while harboring animosity towards someone else. That's not acceptable to any of us.
My faith, your faith, our faiths drive us to drive that out. To ensure that none of us are subject to this. Justice doesn't mean that Dilara Sayeed, an American Muslim teacher and civic justice organizer, works to serve American Muslims. It means I work to serve all people, all my neighbors, all my colleagues, regardless of their faith, their race, their ethnicity, their class, or where they happen to live.
[00:25:40] Adam Phillips: Let's get specific on how we can help support the Muslim community. What can I do? What can my neighbors do to support our Muslim neighbors, especially around this election and the vote? How can we help? How can we be good neighbors?
[00:25:54] Dilara Sayeed: Thank you. Number one is always look out for each other. Specifically, look out for each other. Look out for our children. you said you had a child about the same age as Wadea. Look out for the other children. There has been an increase in bullying. There has been an increase in discrimination. At your schools, at your workplaces, at the campuses, on college, ensure that there are safe spaces for different community members.
Number two, call it out when it's not. Call it out. Be unafraid. In fact, be courageous to say something is wrong. If there is freedom of speech and college students want to exercise it because they are protesting a foreign government if they are protesting hate, then make sure they have the right to do it and the right to do it safely and that all students are safe on campus. If you have access to communities, neighbors, elected officials, talk about the redirection of our tax dollars. Talk about what's needed right here at home.
We can say we are the world's greatest, richest nation, but still resources are limited. I would want to see our resources spent here on healthcare for all. I would like to see our resources spent here on infrastructure building. I would like to see our resources spent here on ensuring schools and workspaces are free of gun violence. All that takes resources and we are diverting those resources to send bombs and money for bombs to another nation. Stand together as Americans against that. Every country has a right to exist. Every human has a right for safety. Stand with us on that. Stand with us on that.
[00:27:47] Adam Phillips: Thank you for that. Dr. Sayeed, thank you for your time. I've got one last question. We asked this question of all our guests and it's, what are you bringing to the potluck? By potluck, we often talk about Interfaith America, the nation-- Not our organization, but this beautiful country that we get to live and build together is certainly not a melting pot but might be a potluck. What are you bringing to the potluck?
[00:28:13] Dilara Sayeed: With a smile and looking in the eyes of everybody else whose food I will love to eat at this potluck, I will bring biryani. Biryani from the hometown that my family is from. It's called Hyderabadi Biryani. Hyderabadi Biryani. It's from Hyderabad. It is marinated lamb, steamed rice, baked in the oven with incredible saffron and spices. It's one of the most delicious things you will ever have.
It's a rice and lamb, one dish. It is from my family's town in Hyderabad, India. I will serve it with a smile and I will look in the eye of every single person who has it. Because I think if we look each other in the eye and we smile at each other and we share food, there is no way we can do anything but love each other.
[00:29:12] Adam Phillips: I can't wait to be at that potluck with you. I'm really grateful for your work and you're on the front lines of really hard stuff. Thank you.
[00:29:19] Dilara Sayeed: Of course. Thank you.
[music]
[00:29:23] Adam Phillips: I'm really thankful for Dr. Sayeed and how being civically engaged within her Muslim community is an example of how working within our own faith communities can make safe spaces for all. Not only to vote but to exist. After the break, we head to the home of cowboy churches, Texas, where we find Shariq Ghani, the Executive Director of the Minaret Foundation.
Shariq Ghani is an interfaith leader and the Executive Director of the Minaret Foundation. The Minaret Foundation fosters multi-faith and civic engagement among communities. In addition to hosting dialogues and events, the organization addresses food insecurity, child welfare, and religious freedom. As part of their work with Interfaith America's Faith in Elections Playbook, Shariq has been instrumental in building a large multi-faith coalition in Harris County, Texas, working closely with churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, and temples to foster more robust civic engagement in historically low-turnout areas.
Shariq is also pursuing a Master's in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. With his background in negotiation and conflict resolution, I'm really looking forward to hearing how he approaches interfaith collaboration and what that looks like in low-voter turnout areas. I started off by asking Shariq, what kind of conversations are you hearing this election season, specifically in Harris County, Texas? Where do you see conflict? Where are you maybe even seeing collaboration?
[00:30:53] Shariq Ghani: It's interesting that you raise that. Yesterday, I was with a group of clergy who traveled from all around the country to visit with us and talk to us about our interfaith work post-10/7. We'll bring together folks from Baptist churches, Calvary churches, we'll bring mainline Protestant, Muslims, Jews of all stripes, and we'll bring them together in the same room and say, "Hey, what can we work on together?"
That generally revolves around hunger, which is food insecurity, or taking care of our children, which would be child welfare. When we're able to build a common point of civility, then the conversations are easier to flow, and we've lowered the barrier. Importantly, you get to humanize one another's perspectives, and each other's perspectives as valid. You may not agree with them, but you can see them as valid. Rather than being right now where we're at in this election season, a complete polar opposite. From the perspectives that we live in, it always feels like the other is doing wrong to us, and we're not doing anything to them. That's an issue of concern as well.
[00:31:53] Adam Phillips: For you as a leader and practitioner on the ground in Harris County, what is it about interfaith and intercultural work that calls to you?
[00:32:02] Shariq Ghani: Listen, in Houston, we love to talk about how we're the most diverse city in the nation. People want to say New York, LA, Chicago, those are all lies. Apart from Texas being the best state in the nation, we also know per capita, Houston is the most diverse city, and it's a microcosm of what the country will look like by 2050. Harris County is the fourth largest county within the greater Houston region itself.
There's something that Eboo Patel said that I often quote, and that is, diversity is just a socio-geographic term. It doesn't really mean anything. Plurality is a measure that we need to get to. How often do we talk to one another? If we can get it right in Harris County, if we can get folks to talk to one another, if we can achieve our mission as Minaret Foundation was to get to a point where we can celebrate one another as a norm rather than the exception, we can create a case study for the rest of the nation.
[00:32:55] Adam Phillips: You're based in this county in Texas. Houston's the county seat of Harris County. It's an area, obviously, with rich diversity, but it's also an area with a complicated voting history, including historically low voter turnout. Even in the past spring primary, where only 15% of voters cast a ballot. Can you tell me about your experience as a civic activator in this most diverse county in Texas and how y'all are working on turning that around?
[00:33:25] Shariq Ghani: One of the things that was incredible in the support that we got from Interfaith America was that we received funding to be able to convene faith communities together. OWe had three areas of focus that we really wanted to hammer on. One thing was we wanted to create more faith centers that were polling locations. Now that may sound weird and completely strange to people in New York and Massachusetts and in Oregon and Washington, but faith centers normally here in the South is how we convene one another.
We have cookouts, we have rodeos, we have all sorts of carnivals, and they happen at faith centers. The Greek festival, the Malaysian festival, the Turkish festival, all happens at faith centers. It's just this natural place of convening. What we wanted to do is get this natural place of convening. We want to turn more of them to polling locations, but not just in blue areas. A lot of the conversations around civic engagement are, how do we get more Democrats to come out and vote?
That's not our focus. Apart from being a nonpartisan organization, it's important to ensure that everyone has the ability to easily vote. Then we have this crazy idea of poll chaplains. I know Interfaith America has been promoting and other organizations were promoting really crazy, alluded to an idea, whatever, would bring it up to people. They're like, "What in the world? Why would we have poll chaplains at voting? What in the heck is a poll chaplain?"
[00:34:47] Adam Phillips: Poll chaplains are everyday people, essentially, who are trained to help voters at election sites, whether that be explaining the process or talking to someone while they are waiting to cast their ballot.
[00:34:56] Shariq Ghani: They bring the temperature down just a little bit. More than anything, you can pray with them. They can provide you with answers, direction, comfort, and they're a source of truth and honesty. That's what we want to have at our polling location. The creation of poll chaplains. We're able to train about 19 poll chaplains. I got to tell you, we did face some challenges there because a lot of churches said, "Are we confusing, conflating religion and politics? Don't we want to keep them completely apart? Are we just pushing this idea?"
Some of our friends were just, "We're really going hard to push Christian nationalism." It's like, no, we're going to have imams, rabbis, pastors, pundits. It doesn't matter who you are. The idea is to lower the temperature and make you feel safe to be able to come on and vote. Let me tell you, there are gaps in our election. There are a lot of gaps in our election that need to be covered. Faith communities already have the funding and they've got the time on their hands to help. More importantly, they want to. No base of volunteers is just rabid. They're just chomping at the bit. They want to help. They just don't know how.
[00:36:06] Adam Phillips: Can you talk a little bit more about what escalation might look like in a place like Harris County, Texas?
[00:36:12] Shariq Ghani: We have to have the infrastructure, not just in voting, but in all aspects of our political systems, if you will, to allow the opposition to voice their concerns and voice their positions, but also to have a seat in government to be able to say with power, this is what we feel. This is what we believe. Now, if we are not allowing people to vote, or if we're not making it easy for people to vote, they are unable to use their voices and put it not just in the ballot box but put it in the seat of government. They quite literally feel as if their words do not matter.
If they feel their words do not matter and that can happen through inaccessibility of voting, that can happen through gerrymandering, that can happen through someone getting into an office and then just automatically flipping parties, that could happen through one commissioner getting elected and then being completely railroaded by four other votes every single time without any a way out, any a compromise, because what they're essentially doing is saying your voices don't matter to an entire swath of the population.
When that happens, those voters will find alternative ways to be heard. Those alternative ways could be friendly, they could also be scary. The ballot box and making voting very accessible, what it says to the populace is that our county cares about your voice and your vote so much so that we're going to make it completely easy for you to have your voices heard. That's just one way to defuse tensions. It has to be done in concert with several other ways, forums, panels, being able to voice your concerns in town halls, in a commissioner's quarter, at city hall, as we've done in concert with everything else. Our small piece of the pie is just making it more accessible in terms of the voting.
[00:38:11] Adam Phillips: I would love if you could drill down a little bit into what you think contributes to the low voter turnout in a place like Harris County. What's the history there?
[00:38:22] Shariq Ghani: In Houston, you've got to have a car. You have to have a car in Houston. It's not possible. People will say that we've got the metro bus system. It's just not that good. In order to go vote, you have to drive. You have to drive to the polling location, you have to have enough time, and then we've got the heat and then we've got weather issues because we're part of the Gulf Coast. There's so many factors that prevent us from voting, apart from just the weird times, and sometimes the accessibility of the location itself. That's a huge thing.
Folks want to point to education, but there are so many billboards. I think an entire rainforest dies every time we have elections because of just the amount of campaign billboards and the flyers and the mailers that everyone is just littered with throughout election season, starting about five to six months beforehand. I'd say the accessibility is an issue, but also not feeling that their vote counts. Because a year, two years beforehand, the propaganda starts. Why should we even vote? Then folks flip and then they turn, and it just feels like we're being marginalized.
[00:39:34] Adam Phillips: Talk to me about the interfaith iftars you've been hosting. They've attracted some pretty cool attention. You were even covered in USA Today. I think for our listeners, explain what an iftar is and share a little bit about what conversations are happening there.
[00:39:48] Shariq Ghani: As Minaret Foundation, we're a multi-faith organization. Again, I'm Muslim. An iftar is the feast or simply water at the end of a day-long fast during the month of Ramadan, because Muslims fast 30 days of the year. At sunset is when we break that fast, because again, we can't drink, we can't eat, we can't take medicine throughout the day. When we break our fast, oftentimes what happens is that it's a celebration. I invite a lot of our clergy, a lot of our partners, a lot of my friends to come over, hang out, share a great meal together, and do some storytelling of our own, and exchange some laughter.
Relationships are something that have to be curated. Oftentimes people forget that. If you're not calling your friends to hang out with you at your apartment or your home, or you're not taking road trips together, or going out to eat together, and you just expect that friends are going to be there in two years, that's not a reasonable expectation. There's some friends that we have that we can see them after 10 years, and it's as if no time was lost in between us. We can pick right where we left off. That is not true for the overwhelming majority of relationships.
In that light, the Iftar is just one touch point. We have to be talking to each other throughout the iftars. i've been invited to Yom Kippur services, Rosh Hashanah services, been invited to Christmas. I always do Easter at a different church throughout the city. People know Shariq's going to be coming with his family to Easter services, and I usually come and participate and observe.
What we've been seeing over the past few years is that you see more Muslims, more Jews, more Christians going to the celebrations of other communities, and of other community members, and having entire rows of just-- at the church that I go to, it's called our friends. You have people from other faith communities that come just to observe. It's so beautiful because we can be there together to celebrate one another because Easter is such a huge milestone in the life of our Christian friends and so is Eid, and Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, Vaisakhi. We should be there to celebrate one another, to celebrate our communities. That's really how this relational infrastructure's built, and it's what's going to hold our country together.
[00:42:08] Adam Phillips: Can you share a story of how you've seen this work impact one individual, someone whose life has been changed by it?
[00:42:15] Shariq Ghani: The legislator in the state of Texas, this individual's very, very conservative. If you look at the conservative political spectrum, they would be against abortion, they would be against opening the border, and any very super fiscal responsibility, anti-COVID, anti-vaccine. They nail every stereotype that people might have about the far right.
One of the things that we do during the legislative session when we go to talk about and educate legislators on our bill sets, is we'll take [unintelligible 00:42:50] rights, 15 pastor events, imams, rabbis, and pastors, all the way to Austin. When we get there, we meet with different legislators, we pray with them, and we had a meeting schedule with this one individual who was carrying one of our bills.
She had never seen an imam and a rabbi in the same room together, having friendly conversation and laughter, not a theological discussion. She just stood up and put her arms around the imam and the rabbi, and she just started crying. She just started weeping. She said, "I've never seen this before." She has become a-- I want to say a closet champion of our work and of issues related to religious freedom for all.
We're hoping to see an entirely public revealing in the next couple of years, but she's become very supportive of the work because she sees what it's like to bring people together and to dispel media narratives and narratives from those of people in power, because oftentimes people in power like to dictate our relationships for us, but we have to control the narrative. That was very powerful for her. She's attended many of our events privately and some publicly, and that's speaking engagements for us. It's because she was able to witness the power of the relationship.
[00:44:12] Adam Phillips: How has this work changed you?
[00:44:15] Shariq Ghani: When I first started this work, I knew faith communities, if we come together, we can achieve anything and everything, I knew it. Now I really know it. I know it in my bones that when an imam, a rabbi a pastor, a pandit, any temple leader, we get together, we show a remarkable display of harmony and togetherness because we have radically different views.
People say we're so similar and we are, but we have radically different views on what's similar. The story of Christ, for instance, radically different views, but we can still come together and say, hey, we need these potholes filled. We need voting more accessible. Let's work on this hunger issue. Children shouldn't be arrested anymore. Can we end this now? When we come together, people really pay attention.
I have to tell you, it's more than just an idea because when we go into the Capitol building, there's an imam, rabbi, a pastor walking together, heads are always turning. No one closes their door on us. The legislators want to meet with us because it's a serious moment for them. These are people from different walks of life who have come together for something very important.
Let's hear them out. I know if we continue to do this work at Minaret Foundation, as long as Interfaith America continues to push in the right direction as you always have and other interfaith organizations throughout the country continue to convene faith communities together, we can really make this nation an amazing place.
[00:45:47] Adam Phillips: Last question. Here at Interfaith America, we like to say America is a potluck nation. We all have something unique to contribute. First off, what actual food are you bringing to the potluck? Second, what are you figuratively bringing to the potluck that is American democracy?
[00:46:02] Shariq Ghani: The actual food that I'm bringing is definitely going to be smash burgers and smash burgers do not need lettuce, tomatoes, onions of any kind. They just need to be meat, cheese, salt, pepper, garlic, and some awesome Martin's rolls. That's it. That's what I'm going to be bringing and no one will eat anything other than my burgers, I think. That's just what will end up happening.
Figuratively what I'm going to be bringing to the potluck is the idea that we need to continue working for the betterment of our neighbors. That's the single common thread that we have amongst all of our faith traditions and across the political spectrum of our faith traditions is that we all want to make our city better. We all want to make our county or region better.
If we continue convening, if we continue coming together, as long as interfaith organizations continue to exist and doing good work, such as Minaret Foundation and Interfaith America and so many countless others such as Shoulder to Shoulder throughout the nation, we will be a people who will always talk to one another and be able to bridge our differences and come together for the betterment of our neighbors.
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[00:47:05] Adam Phillips: Shariq's right. Talking to each other, breaking bread, and building relationships can make all the difference in helping us understand each other. Understanding is what we need going into this upcoming election and beyond. I think two of the keys for this upcoming election are interfaith and intercultural collaboration. These matter when it comes to building relationships, both within our varied communities, but also as a bridge to other communities.
We can't be apathetic now. Voter access for all, democracy, these are shared principles within our varied faith traditions. Thanks again to our guests, Shariq Ghani and Dr. Dilara Sayeed for sharing how they build relationships and invite interfaith and intercultural collaboration. To get involved with Shariq's initiatives and the Minaret Foundation, visit minaretfoundation.com.
To learn more about Dr. Sayeed's work at the Muslim Civic Coalition and the Wadea Resolution, visit muslimciviccoalition.org. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a review and follow us on Instagram at interfaithamerica. To read more about this conversation and to find resources and stories about bridge building in a religiously diverse nation, visit our website, interfaithamerica.org.
Faith in Elections is part of our Voices of Interfaith America podcast network. This episode was hosted by me, Adam Phillips. Production was provided by Keisha TK Dutes, our executive producer. Manny Faces is our producer and audio editor for Philo's Future Media, a story editing by Johanna Zorn. The Interfaith America team is Silma Suba and Rheya Spigner, our executive producers.
Noah Silverman is our editorial director and our Democracy Initiatives team is senior director Becca Hartman-Pickerill and manager Rollie Olson. We couldn't do this without our coordinated producers, Teri Simon and Olivia Stufflebeam, Rachel Crowe, our production assistant, and Katherine O'Brien, our marketing manager. Share Faith in Elections with a friend and rate, follow, subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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