Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (2007) By Eboo Patel

A few months ago, I read Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel but never got around to writing it up for my Book Blog.  Sadly, this delay has only served to make this post more relevant.  In the days since the bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the cause of terrorism against noncombatant civilians has once again entered our consciousness.  In the immediate afterward of that stunning week, the President phrased it correctly, despite his critics, when he underscored that perhaps the most important question we should be asking in the ensuing investigation is not how, but why.  Why do two young men, American citizens no less, resort to indiscriminate acts of terror.

It’s not a new question, Eboo Patel, an “all-American boy” from the suburbs of Chicago, with a family lineage deeply connected to the Muslim community of Mumbai, asked it in the years after 9/11.  His book Acts of Faith, written after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, examines the topic in a thought provoking series of essays. His mission wasn’t blame, it was prevention. And his conclusion is as strong as it is challenging. 

There is a lesson to be learned from these attacks, and it has been proven repeatedly by civil rights movements around the globe: hatred is learned -- be it racism, religious intolerance, classism between the haves and the have nots, or homophobia.   A child, any child, every child, is born without prejudice.  The prejudices he or she acquires in life are learned from someone, and usually learned without challenge. 

Perhaps it is an over simplification that prejudices are taught, but the consequence of not addressing this viewpoint is clear, painfully clear.  Patel notes, with a sincerity that does not belie the difficulty, that the antidote for such hated is not never-ending warfare, but countering the teaching of hatred with the teaching of tolerance and the acceptance, the joy of, diversity.

Acts of Faith challenges us all to fill this educational void. It is an easy answer for those of us who are advocates of multiculturalism; to borrow a word that defined my generation: imagine.   

Patel’s book was thought provoking, action inspiring, after 9/11.  It remains so in the days after the Boston Marathon.  Someone took it upon themselves to teach those boys hatred.  None of us made it our job to teach them tolerance.  We must address this oversight.