Three Questions for American Muslims: Hussein Kanji

The Muslim Portal at Patheos  is hosting the “Three Questions” project for the month of September in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of the terrorist acts of 9/11.  We are asking American Muslims from across the nation three simple but important questions. Click here to learn more about the project.

Hussein Kanji, an entrepreneur and advisor to several start-ups with a technology/business resume too impressive to sum up here, offers his answers to the three questions:

1. What is the most pressing issue or concern for you as a Muslim in America today, 10 years after the tragedy of 9/11?

N/A. Am in UK now.

2. In what ways – inwardly /or outwardly – did 9/11 change you or affect you?

Yes. [It] made me realize our community is even more screwed up than I thought. The religion may not have real problems, but the people certainly do. The house is certainly not in order. The people I studied with in Yemen were not just bite, but bark. Plus [I realized after 9/11 that] more and more Americans would get alienated from an already foreign and misunderstood religion. And Muslims too.

Personally, [I] had a lot more to learn about my faith – in a good way (unlike statements above). Not all fundamentalism is bad fundamentalism, but it takes a lot of intellectual energy to figure it out.

3. What do you think non-Muslim Americans most need to know about Muslims?

One billion people can’t all be the same. There is a spiritual and intellectual strain in the religion. Its just drowned out by all the fundamentalism and cultural crap.