Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of aGeneration by Eboo Patel

Jan 04, 2009

Maureen rated it

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Shelves: nonfiction

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Its a fascinating and super engaging look at one man's life and journey to understand his religious identity - and how that journey is universally experienced. Patel started a nonprofit organization to bring young people of diverse religious backgrounds together to spend a year doing service work together, and through that, come to understand and respect each others' cultures. He delves into the absolute need for religious pluralism, especially when ...more

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Oct 14, 2008

Adam rated it

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Recommends it for: religious and non-religious readers alike, community development practitioners, youth activists

Shelves: memoir-autobio

(Full disclosure: Eboo is a teacher and friend of mine!). A wonderful book written by an incredible mind and spirit. Part autobiographical, part visionary, Acts of Faith recounts Patel's coming of age as an Indian-American Muslim alongside the development of a vision for a viable, pluralist America. In his words, “This is a story of returning to faith, of finding coherence, of committing to pluralism, and of the influences I owe my life to” (xix). This is a truly hope-inspiring read. I coul...more

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Feb 19, 2008

Shalini rated it

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Nice story, with a genuinely interesting message. Patel is an interfaith youth coordinator now, but his central point isn't that faith always makes people do great things. It's that faith can be a vehicle for violence and intolerance or it can be a channel for service to humanity and compassion, and which path a person takes is completely dependent on early influences. What people want, and especially young people, he says, is a role, a sense of shaping their world. Either path gives it to t...moreNice story, with a genuinely interesting message. Patel is an interfaith youth coordinator now, but his central point isn't that faith always makes people do great things. It's that faith can be a vehicle for violence and intolerance or it can be a channel for service to humanity and compassion, and which path a person takes is completely dependent on early influences. What people want, and especially young people, he says, is a role, a sense of shaping their world. Either path gives it to them. Fundamentalists understand that and do a remarkable job of inspiring and organizing young people behind them. Pluralists have every bit the same capacity to inspire and organize, to channel young people's passions into social justice and service, but tend not to be as proactive. He felt that gap in his life and tried to fill it with his work, and the book basically is about how and why.

He also doesn't suggest faith has any monopoly on morality. For most of his life, he wasn't interested in faith but was active in community work anyway. He was raised with Muslim rituals he didn't understand, didn't feel any comfort from them when he was alienated as a child, rejected them in adolescence, aligned himself with a sort of intellectual activism in college, got eventually tired of only angriness at the world rather than trying to constructively engage it, then at some point realized his heroes (King, Gandhi, Dorothy Day), whose written beliefs resonated with him, were all people driven by faith, and that even though their faiths were different, the core value that drove them all - service to humanity, without divisions - was the same feeling that drove him. As a young adult he realized that even his own family, though never very good at articulating it, had always lived their faith as that same value.

Running through his story are passing mentions of the backgrounds of terrorists and fundamentalists, and how similar and unremarkable they are to his except for some incidental influence at an impressionable age. Patel wonders aloud (or whatever the equivalent is in writing), "What if I'd read (what he read) instead of (what I did)" or "What if I'd talked to (who he talked to) instead of (who I talked to)." His life's work now is to make the influences he found and the path he took easier to come by for those looking.

The real reason I started this is that my mom wanted me to read it - because it's about an Indian kid who grew up in a Chicago suburb (like me), which actually made me immediately want to not read it. But Patel's tone isn't angsty or self-pitying, mostly just matter-of-fact and sometimes pretty funny. I liked it. Good job, Ma.(less)

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Feb 21, 2011

Michelle Rader rated it

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This was a fascinating book on several levels: 1) as a memoir of what it is like to grow up in America as an Indian immigrant, 2) a personal journey of faith and 3) an appeal for people of different faiths to dialogue and work together.

His vision of religious pluralism is not one that says " all religions are the same and the differences don't really matter.". Instead he has real respect for the uniqueness of each religion, for following ones own convictions, for searching o...more

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Jan 19, 2011

Jena Mcfall rated it

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This book asks what would have happened if the 9/11 hijackers would have had an influence other than bin Laden. Things might have turned out much differently. Patel wants to make that happen for another generation of kids. Loved this book.

It's about religious pluralism/tolerance. This guy started an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core. He asks how teenagers came to hold their views. And answers "People taught them." He also says that teenagers' faith in their own r...moreThis book asks what would have happened if the 9/11 hijackers would have had an influence other than bin Laden. Things might have turned out much differently. Patel wants to make that happen for another generation of kids. Loved this book.

It's about religious pluralism/tolerance. This guy started an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core. He asks how teenagers came to hold their views. And answers "People taught them." He also says that teenagers' faith in their own religion becomes stronger with sharing and volunteering with teenagers of other religions.

When I'm reading these books something always jumps out at me, relating to my life (which is maybe the purpose of me reading these books, in the grand scheme of things). The part that jumped out in this book is:

"People loved our free-styling. We regularly got standing ovations. Teachers would ask us to speak to their classes. Religious leaders wanted us to visit their congregations.

We started to feel a little uncomfortable with the attention. At one point, I made a confession to Brother Wayne: 'There really isn't an interfaith youth movement. Kevin and I are just dreaming out loud."

He was unperturbed. 'Even articulating the hope is helping to make it a reality. Keep praying for it and meeting people who feel like you do, and it will begin to take shape."

Another area where this touches my life: "The question of the faith line cannot be answered by drawing a line between the religious and the nonreligious. Pluralism--even religious pluralism--is everybody's business, for both the obvious pragmatic reasons and the poetic ones. After all, there are many places where people hear the music of transcendence. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, some folks find the beyond in the church of their choice, some folks find it in a Woody Guthrie song.

We need all of those people--the hymn singers and the sun saluters, the Qur'an reciters and the mandala makers, the speakers of Hebrew and the readers of Sanskrit, the hip-hop heads and the folk music fans--and more. We need a language that allows us to emphasize our unique inspirations and affirm our universal values."
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Dec 07, 2009

Jee Koh rated it

Acts of Faith,/i> is the biographical story of a man growing up American, (South) Indian and Muslim. Patel's Ismaili Muslim parents moved from Bombay to the United States in search of a better life, and so Patel grew up between worlds. If the coming-of-age story sounds familiar, Patel enlivens it with well-chosen anecdotes and an interesting cast of characters, including a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

The book is also an argument for religious pluralism over what it calls "rel...moreActs of Faith,/i> is the biographical story of a man growing up American, (South) Indian and Muslim. Patel's Ismaili Muslim parents moved from Bombay to the United States in search of a better life, and so Patel grew up between worlds. If the coming-of-age story sounds familiar, Patel enlivens it with well-chosen anecdotes and an interesting cast of characters, including a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

The book is also an argument for religious pluralism over what it calls "religious totalitarianism." Its main thesis is that behind religious terrorists, who are almost always young people, are charismatic leaders and established institutions who have reached the youths in a way that mainstream religious organizations have failed to do. While interfaith organizations have existed for a long time, they are dominated by greybeards ad so appear irrelevant to young people. Inspired by heroes in different religious traditions, and by the discovery of diversity within Islam itself, Patel founded Interfaith Youth Core, an international organization based in Chicago, that brings together young people from different religious backgrounds for service and reflection.

The writing is thoughtful throughout, bearing the influence of literary heroes such James Baldwin. The book does not attempt an in-depth analysis of religious terrorism. Its explanation of the phenomenon may seem biased by the author's personal quest for identity, however, the virtue of combining biography and analysis is that you know where the writer is coming from, unlike other seemingly more objective tomes.

I wish Patel explored the more troubling aspects of Islam; he is a little too eager, I think, to put Islam in a good light, though that impulse, given the Islamophobia in the USA, is understandable. Patel touches on potential conflicts in interfaith discussions, emphasizing that such discussions need to focus on the idea of service instead of truth. In his experience, young people who participated in such interfaith service return to their own religions with greater understanding and commitment. He does not, to my disappointment, discuss the status of atheism, and its relationship to interfaith discourse and organizations.(less)

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Sep 28, 2009

Joey rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, religion

"I believe that the twenty-first century will be shaped by the question of the faith line. On one side of the faith line are the religious totalitarians. Their conviction is that only one interpretation of one religion is a legitimate way of being, believing, and belonging on earth. Everyone else needs to be cowed, or converted, or condemned, or killed. On the other side of the faith line are the religious pluralists, who hold that people believing in different creeds and belonging to diffe...more"I believe that the twenty-first century will be shaped by the question of the faith line. On one side of the faith line are the religious totalitarians. Their conviction is that only one interpretation of one religion is a legitimate way of being, believing, and belonging on earth. Everyone else needs to be cowed, or converted, or condemned, or killed. On the other side of the faith line are the religious pluralists, who hold that people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together. Religious pluralism is neither mere coexistence nor forced consensus. It is a form of proactive cooperation that affirms the identity of the constituent communities while emphasizing that the well-being of each and all depends on the health of the whole. It is the belief that the common good is best served when each community has a chance to make its unique contribution (Introduction XV)."

"Religious totalitarians have the unique advantage of being able to oppose each other and work together at the same time. Osama bin Laden says that Christians are out to destroy Muslims. Pat Robertson says that Muslims want only to dominate Christians. Bin Laden points to Pat Robertson as evidence of his case. Robertson points to bin Laden as proof of his. Bin Laden says he is moving Muslims to his side of the faith line. Robertson claims he is moving Christians to his. But if you look from a certain angle, you see that they are not on opposite sides at all. They are right next to each other, standing should to shoulder, a most unlikely pair, two totalitarians working collectively against the dream of a common life together (Introduction XV)."

"A favorite explanation of people who are suspicious of religion in general, or other people's religions in particular, is that religious texts themselves command violence, and so it should not surprise us when believers obey. This argument is particularly marshaled against Muslims, with Islamophobes and Muslim totalitarians alike circulating papers that cite only the parts of the Qur'an that deal with violence. [However,:] violence committed in the name of a religion is really violence emanating from the heart of a particular interpreter (141)."(less)

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Aug 05, 2009

Judine rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction

Part of what makes Patel interesting to me is that we are close to the same age -- he finished college in the mid-'90s and went to graduate school after that. Primarily, his account is fascinating because he makes good points about the necessity of inter-faith youth movements; he uses a series of striking comparisons about what happens when youth (like himself) are exposed to positive religious influences and work with people from a variety of religions with what happens to youth (in situations ...more

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Jul 04, 2011

Niral rated it

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There are several things the author advocates that resonated with me: 1) acknowledging the power of institutions to influence an individual's thought (and thus behavior); 2) focusing on youth as the drivers of social change; and 3) making service the nexus point for dialogue and collaboration.

However, I struggle with the author's treatment of the merits of religion, which I found to be superficial. He is right to point out that people can come together by identifying the variety of ...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Derek Emerson rated it

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Shelves: 2011-books-read

Patel is getting a lot of attention for his work, but frankly, it is not because of his writing. This book comes highly recommended not only from people I respect, but with big-name quotes and a major award. The message is stronger than the messenger, which is probably why. Patel is doing good work and he'll let you know that, although he tries to be humble (and fails miserably).

The book itself is disjointed. Part of it is about his own life, which can be summarized as upper middle-c...more

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Nov 13, 2009

Michael VanZandt rated it

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This is a book which sat in the "to-read" category for too long. After a book sale for frequent buyers at my local bookstore and the headline-grabbing tragedy at Ft. Hood, I felt compelled to finally reach for this book. Having just read The Islamist by Ed Husain on the South Asian Muslim experience in London, I constantly referred to that book but also resisted that connection as well. For all of the intrigue of a discussion between these two thinkers and leaders, who are of the sa...moreThis is a book which sat in the "to-read" category for too long. After a book sale for frequent buyers at my local bookstore and the headline-grabbing tragedy at Ft. Hood, I felt compelled to finally reach for this book. Having just read The Islamist by Ed Husain on the South Asian Muslim experience in London, I constantly referred to that book but also resisted that connection as well. For all of the intrigue of a discussion between these two thinkers and leaders, who are of the same age and backgrounds, the two however have journeyed very different paths. Of course, after a Google search of Eboo Patel, right-wing nutjobs would tell you otherwise. In their tortured minds and in the throes of Islamophobia, Patel represents Islamism in America and deride Obama for naming him to the Council of Interfaith and Neighborhood-Based Partnerships. It's ridiculous, not only does Patel serve as a paradigm of interfaith cooperation and dialogue in service learning, principles which he has fostered within himself for his entire adult life, but he is the vanguard in the emerging concept of an American Islam. In the closing pages, he concludes that Catholicism and Judaism found a revitalized spirituality and expression in the United States in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, it is Islam's opportunity to re-new itself in America. This statement cannot be overlooked. At the moment, much of the discourse in Islam is intertwined with Saudi dollars which come with its intolerant Wahhabism. That is what produces many of the imams of Europe, has rebuilt the mosques of Bosnia in an Arabian style, and stoked the militant fires in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Patel's contribution to the conversation is not only theologically sound, but also culturally sensitive and melds perfectly within the American experience.

If you are a person looking for the crux of adolescent identity crises, the first half of the book will suffice. There is plenty to please. The latter half of the book is more about building coalitions and constructing a movement.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book on many levels. I found myself writing down names of scholars and social entrepreneurs which he had mentioned through his narrative on my bookmark. I am sure that I will reference it many times in the future.(less)

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Apr 08, 2010

Faith rated it

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Shelves: religion, social-policy

YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! Not only is the building of a movement for religious pluralism (which includes atheists and agnostics) of the highest importance, but the story of Eboo's journey is incredibly entertaining, inspiring, and familiar. This book is for any young person learning to make sense of his/herself and the incredibly diverse world we live in without settling for easy answers, complacency, or a defensive and reactionary world-view. Eboo points to a way that we can all love and appreci...more

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Aug 06, 2011

Dana rated it

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Eboo Patel is very smart and is a former Rhodes scholar. He has doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford and is the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, "an organization that unites young people of different religions to perform community service and explore their common values. "
He tells two stories in this book.

He tells his own personal story, one of growing up Muslim in America, being bullied by other kids because he was brown and Muslim, and his reje...moreEboo Patel is very smart and is a former Rhodes scholar. He has doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford and is the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, "an organization that unites young people of different religions to perform community service and explore their common values. "
He tells two stories in this book.

He tells his own personal story, one of growing up Muslim in America, being bullied by other kids because he was brown and Muslim, and his rejection of and later return to the Muslim religion that he was raised in.

The other story that he tells is how impressionable teenagers are brought into extremist youth groups because their religions have failed to engage them in positive ways. He gives examples of Christian, Jewish and Hindu extremist groups as well as those that are Muslim.

Eboo's personal story is interesting and I learned more about the Muslim religion that I did not know. He is an Ismaili Musilim, part of the Shia group that follows an Imam who is a supreme leader to them rather like the Pope is to the Catholics. Their current Imam is known as the Aga Kahn. Eboo's parents wanted him to learn service and charity to others and so they made him participate in a YMCA youth service group, which he feels helped to give him identity and kept him from possibly falling prey to extremist Muslim groups.

Eboo feels that extremist groups are more political than religious and that none of them really represent their religions as their religions are meant to be practiced. He recognizes that extremist groups give huge amounts of money to create youth indoctrination groups, which certainly is true of the Muslim extremist groups. He tells about the school that Osama Bin Laden went to and decribes some of their teachings and methods. He also gives examples of White Supremacy groups posing as Christian Youth educational groups and gives some examples of a small Jewish extremist group in the 1960s. He also tells of the Hindu extemist group called th National Volunteer Corps or RSS whose goal is "a pure Hindu nation" and while initally attracting youth w/ Hindu ideology, this group has been responsible for the murders of thousands of Muslims.

Eboo feels that the solution to extremist groups is to unite the youth of the various religions together to serve for a common purpose so that they will know and understand one another as similar human beings. His group, the IFYC strives to do that. I think that is a nice idea.

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Oct 29, 2007

sara rated it

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i think i'm in love w/ eboo patel. no seriously, before i ever started the book, i had a dream that i met him at some fundraising dinner, and we were sitting on the same table. loved the book. much of it felt like he was takin words out of my mouth. if we only had more muslims like him in this world...sigh...

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Feb 10, 2009

Tom rated it

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This is one of the best and most thought-provoking I've read in a long time. The author is an East Indian American whose parents were from Mumbai, India. He's a Muslim and as a boy and young man didn't give too much thought to his religion. His parents were devout, but both having professional careers, religion became less important in their lives, especially his father's, and thus in his life as well.

Patel grew up near Chicago and talks about Bill Ayers and other names we've recentl...moreThis is one of the best and most thought-provoking I've read in a long time. The author is an East Indian American whose parents were from Mumbai, India. He's a Muslim and as a boy and young man didn't give too much thought to his religion. His parents were devout, but both having professional careers, religion became less important in their lives, especially his father's, and thus in his life as well.

Patel grew up near Chicago and talks about Bill Ayers and other names we've recently been reintroduced to. He talks about learning leadership from his involvement with the YMCA and how certain friends and relative though it was unseemly for a young Muslim to be involved in a putatively Christian organization. His take was that they didn't learn about religion but rather learned how to be leaders. I suppose the Boy Scouts could have given him the same kind of experience.

He attended the University of Illinois where the emphasis is equally on athletics as on academics which caused him to be taken a bit aback when he later attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship.

One of the main themes of the book is to point out how fundamentalist and extremist groups, whether based on religion, race or whatever faction, have been better at engaging young people than mainstream religious and service organizations. He tells of the example of a couple young men involved in the plot to blow up buses/subways in London and a young Jewish man who got involved with the Jewish extremist Meir Kahane. How did these otherwise ordinary, unexceptional young people come under the influence of extremist leaders? No religion is free of extremist factions and every religion can breed such young fanatics but the extremists seem to pay more attention to the needs and passions of the young as compared to "moderate" groups.

As a result of his thinking about his own religious heritage, discovering a long tradition of service in his family both in the U.S. and India, Patel founded, with the backing of such luminaries as the Dalai Lama, an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core (originally spelled Corps). The purpose of IFYC is to promote religious pluralism especially among young people by bringing them together to serve others.

The book is relatively short, compellingly written and worth picking up if you are looking for inspiration in these rather bleak times.(less)

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Aug 21, 2011

Kristi rated it

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Shelves: nonfiction

I really liked Patel's ideas within this book, but I found it hard to follow/read at many times. There was a lot more history and religious definition that I think I expected from the book.

That being said, Patel is an amazing person! He has spoken at my college twice in the last 2 years and has blown me away! It is his charisma, flawless speech-writing, and desire for peace and understanding that drew me to this book. The writing is well-done and I could see bits of his personality sh...more

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Aug 20, 2011

Wendy rated it

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Even though I do sometimes like to read about religion, I normally wouldn't have chosen this book. However, it was a gift from a very religious Catholic friend I know through work, and I found it incredibly inspiring and fascinating. Eboo Patel is self-effacing and honest in telling his story of growing up Muslim in the US, and he weaves in what he learns from his friends, his mentors, and his studies, including as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. He founded an international youth interfaith organiza...more

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Nov 09, 2009

Greg Bolt rated it

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This book was recommended to me by my HOS. What a great read and a great story. I had been talking with another youth leader in town about setting up this exact thing. He also just finished reading it and we are both excited about the future of interfaith dialogue among the youth.

If you haven't read this and you work with you, you need to. It provides a vision of how we as members of the church, members of society, and members of creation can and need to work together to bring about t...more

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Apr 04, 2010

Dayspring rated it

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Shelves: current-events, religion-spirituality, memiors, politics, race-and-ethnicity, sociology

Eboo Patel spoke at a higher education conference that I attended, and I was amazed by his knowledge and ability to find connections between different faith traditions, and to build bridges based on shared values for service and peace. He founded the Interfaith Youth Core (http://www.ifyc.org/) in Chicago, which now works with college students throughout the U.S., bringing together young adults from different religious backgrounds to work together in service for their communities.

...more

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Nov 06, 2009

Leroy Seat rated it

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I don't give many books five stars, but I gave the maximum to this book not because of the book itself but because of the story it tells and the ongoing work of the author. I think Patel's story, which he tells well, and the work he is doing is so important I want as much as possible to encourage others to read it.

I especially liked what Patel wrote about pluralism in the last chapter. That is the kind of pluralism I affirm, and I hope everyone can come to embrace that same sort of r...more

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Oct 16, 2010

Mona rated it

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Shelves: life-stories, nonfiction, united-states, islam

I have a friend who I met in high school and to whom I became especially close to in college. Towards the end of high school, she found herself gradually becoming dissatisfied with her own faith, and gradually more interested in mine and that of her co-workers. Eventually, she began practicing her own faith once again, this time with more conviction. She told me once that experiencing the beauty of our religion helped her see the beauty in her own.

Her remarks have stuck with me, and...more

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Jun 23, 2009

John Laliberte rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction

This is an interesting little book. While I thought it had its flaws, at time bordering on a narcissist preoccupation of the author’s experiences with little detail of the impact he was having on those that he worked on, there is a strong undercurrent of truth that tells of a much greater flaw in our society and culture. That is, our neglect as a society to “train up” our youth. Patel weaves a very personal story that shows what happens when we fail to present what is good and right in our wa...more

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Jul 25, 2010

Heather Olson Beal rated it

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I really enjoyed this book. Patel chronicles his faith journey and his efforts to establish an organization to foster interfaith dialogue and understanding. I was most moved by the beginning, where he talks about terrible things done by young people in the name of religion. He essentially asks how their lives might have been different (better) had they been able to interact with adults who WEREN'T religious extremists who encouraged them to commit violent acts.

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Apr 06, 2010

Beth G. rated it

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Shelves: 2010, memoir, religion, community-work, non-fiction, books-for-grown-ups, library-books

I knew Eboo slightly back in college - I was a year behind him, living in the same Residence Hall he talks about in the third chapter. His account of growing up Muslim-Indian-American and how that led him to a career in organizing interfaith youth service projects is both fascinating and well-told. His struggle to integrate the pieces of his identity will feel familiar to many young people of very different backgrounds, and his commitment to encouraging pluralism around the world is inspiring.

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Sep 20, 2011

Pat rated it

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Mr. Patel, a young Muslim, who several times during the book returned to India to visit his grandmother, went through the radicalism years when in college and then while working on his dissertation at Oxford built the framework for Interfaith Youth Core in which youth of different religious backgrounds came together to do mission work and learn of each other's religions. It was a very interesting book, easy read.

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Sep 12, 2008

Sharon rated it

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Shelves: anti-oppression

Patel writes of the struggle between religious totalitarians (those who believe that "only one interpretation of one religion is a legitimate way of being, believing, and belonging on earth") and religious pluralists (those "who hold that people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together). He believes that the 21st century will be shaped by the tensions between these groups.

Despite the heavy topic, the book is ve...more

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Mar 16, 2009

Danny rated it

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In Patel's struggle to find his own religious identify, he comes to understand the importance of religious pluralism as he gathers young people together to discover just how powerful the commonalities are that bind them together simply as humans. Their differences diminish as these young, passionate people voice their ideas about spiritual convictions.

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Jan 24, 2009

Lisa rated it

Shelves: religion, islam, literary-memoir, nonfiction, favorites

One of the most eloquent and empowering accounts I have encountered of an individual coming to terms with their faith, marginalized identities, and the desire to do good in the world. This is an amazing book with profound things to say about religion, youth and civic involvement. I'm going to recommend it to everyone I know.

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Jan 17, 2012

Parag rated it

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Shelves: memoir

Interesting read, good story, mixed ability to convey it well. Feels like there were too many different types of books he wanted to write and he didn't pick one or the right combination. So it felt uneven. Still, ideas are interesting and elements of his story are worth exploring. Wish there was more about his org in this. Probably the level of writing and style I might muster, so I expect a bit more.

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Feb 09, 2011

Zohra added it · review of another edition

It was a good book, well written. It is autobiographical and tells the story of American born child of immigrant family, growing up in America and who's aspiration was to build youth Interfaith group. And he did it. For a Muslim boy to achieve this in America is a good feat. A story told well.

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