Our world is increasingly interdependent and pluralistic, and in order to ensure a civil future, we must get to know one another.

If you are not upset about the way the world is going, you are asleep or spiritually dead. People need to get on board and start showing solidarity.

Whatever one thinks of the wisdom of building a mosque near Ground Zero, this controversy now affords us an immense opportunity to examine who we are as a people. It provides us with the opportunity to get back to our foundational ideals, which have always stood as a beacon for the rest of the world.

Corruption is rife in the Muslim world, and when it is coupled with the marginalization of religion, it manifests itself as frustration and becomes a fertile recruiting ground for extremism.

In being aware of others' hunger, we contribute to a more empathic world.

For believers, both privilege and privation are a trial, and both demand responses: one demands service, and the other demands patience. The greatest privilege is to live well in flourishing lands; the greatest privation is to live in the midst of war, especially civil war.