Meeting the Prophet

Sharing our stories is very important. If you ask a Muslim to talk about the Prophet Muhammad, they'll never stop telling you about the qualities they love in the life of the Prophet - and then they'll tell you sixteen stories to illustrate each of these very high qualities they admire. 
Muslims are very similar to Jews in our tradition of storytelling. These stories are embedded in our consciousness and embody our spiritual memories. The stories come to us as mother's milk. They're written around our home. They're recited to us.

I certainly agree with you that storytelling is a distinctive part of Muslim culture. But, considering the importance of literary arts in the history of Islam, it's quite an irony to log into the online Amazon bookstore, search for "Islam," and discover that the top-ranked books are by Karen Armstrong and John Esposito - neither of them Muslims. They're both widely respected writers, but imagine searching for "Christianity" and discovering that the leading books were written by non-Christians - or search for "Judaism" and find that Jews didn't write the top books.
   

That's one reason I wanted to publish this book with a large, mainstream publisher like HarperOne. 
 I will give Karen Armstrong credit where credit is due and I'll say she is a good author who popularizes material in a helpful way. She takes the scholarship other people have done and turns out readable books on Jesus and God and Muhammad and what have you. But, in order to get my own book published, I had a very up-hill fight with HarperCollins. They said to me: "Why would anyone want to read any book on Muhammad other than Karen Armstrong's book?" 
I had to remind them that people prefer to read Christian authors on Christianity and Jewish authors on Judaism, so why shouldn't readers want to read about Islam from a Muslim? 
   

And John Esposito? I've known and interviewed him over the years and I know his books are appreciated by American Muslims. 
   

Yes, John opened a lot of doors for people. Americans like reading books by John and Karen because they're friendly non-Muslims reassuring readers that Islam is OK. 
 I do have to give John credit for inviting Muslim writers to co-author a number of books with him. He helped to get those authors' names into catalogs that they'd never have reached without his help.

So, all things considered, are you optimistic as we begin a new decade? 
   

I am optimistic, but I'm not naïve. I really do hold onto the notion that there is real good and there is real evil in the world. There is real love and there is real hatred in this world, as well. 
I just do not believe that these divisions have to run along religious lines or ethnic lines or national lines.  I am a teacher. My paycheck comes from being a teacher. If I didn't walk into the classroom every day believing passionately that knowledge is more powerful than ignorance, that love can vanquish hatred, that light can overcome darkness - I couldn't get up every morning and face a new day. 
   

Desmond Tutu said that faith at some point has to be faith in things unseen. I can see this world that I want my children to grow up in and I want other people's children to grow up in. It isn't a world that I can see around me yet. And I'm not sure I will see it even in my lifetime. But I have to hold onto the hope that, if I do my part and others do their parts, then someday people will grow up in a world where color of skin or faith or gender or ethnicity will not limit who we can become.

This work by David Crumm Media LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. This article was first published by ReadtheSpirit.com.