Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf [REBROADCAST]

We revisit our 2014 interview with the challenging and engaging Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

For some, he is a lightning rod. For others, he is an international voice of reason and reconciliation. For us, a fascinating conversation about the face of Islam in contemporary international politics, and the vital need for hospitality and honest conversation between Islam and the west. We present David Dault's in-depth conversation with Imam Rauf, where we discuss misconceptions about Islam and the core of religious identity.

In 2015, Imam Rauf released his most recent book, Defining Islamic Statehood.

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Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is founder and chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, a multi-national, multi faith organization dedicated to improving Muslim-West relations.  In 1997, he also co- founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA); the first Muslim organization committed to building bridges between Muslims and the American public by elevating the discourse on Islam through educational outreach, interfaith collaboration, culture and arts.

Imam Rauf is the author of several books, most recently What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America: A New Vision for Muslims and the West. He is also the highly visible face of Park51, a thirteen-story Islamic center in Lower Manhattan that, for a time, was the focus of negative media attention when it was mis-identified as the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."

Despite the criticism he endured around the Park51 controversy, Imam Rauf has been seen more often as a voice calling for moderation in global religious disputes. He has characterized the threat to modern culture as coming not from a particular religion, but rather from the vein of extremism that can be found across the spectrum of faiths. As he wrote in Moving the Mountain: Beyond Ground Zero to a New Vision of Islam in America, "The real fault line in global religion and politics is not that between the Muslim world and the West, but rather between political and religious moderates of all faiths and persuasions and extremists of all faiths and persuasions."