When I was six, I was fasting at school for religious reasons. My teacher, Miss O’Hara — a spry Catholic woman with curly gray hair — noticed. She fasted with me the next day. She didn’t share my faith, but she protected my dignity.
That moment taught me what leadership really is: curiosity instead of fear, care instead of distance, action instead of avoidance. It is a lesson that has stayed with me.
Over time, I would see the same pattern repeat itself. Organizations and communities rarely struggle because people bring values or beliefs into shared spaces. They struggle because leaders are not prepared to navigate deep differences with clarity, consistency, and care — and because institutions often leave dignity to individual goodwill instead of building it into norms, systems, and expectations.
Many sacred traditions teach that we share a common humanity and a shared destiny. The Quran tells us that God created us from a single soul and made us different so that we may know one another — and strive together in good works. We are entrusted to one another for a reason: to learn from and respect our differences, build mutually inspiring relationships, and cooperate for the common good — safeguarding the dignity and self-reliance of those most often pushed to the margins. Archbishop Desmond Tutu echoed this vision: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” The Maha Upanishad similarly reminds us that the whole world is one family.
Yet we sometimes forget we are of one soul — all children of God, made different by divine design. Under stress or fear, we can stop acting like family. When that trust frays, difference can become division or it can become strength. In workplaces and communities, that outcome is shaped less by intent than by everyday choices: who we include, what we assume, and how we respond under pressure.
I understand pluralism as an ethic and a skill: the daily practice of meeting difference with respect, building relationships across it, and cooperating for the common good.
As a South Asian American Muslim woman born and raised in upstate New York, I have encountered pluralism not as an abstract ideal, but as a lived test. I understand pluralism as an ethic and a skill: the daily practice of meeting difference with respect, building relationships across it, and cooperating for the common good. Rooted in Islam and resonant with American democratic values, it depends on religious freedom, justice, balance, and the dignity and self-reliance of each person. But while our society is pluralistic in composition, it is not always pluralistic in mindset. Some approach difference with respectful curiosity; others treat it as a stereotype or a risk—so belonging becomes conditional.
My childhood reflected both harm and grace. I remember my best friend telling me, “My mom says we can’t be friends anymore because you’re not white.” I remember neighborhood boys we once built snowmen with laughing as they beat my brother on our front porch for being “too brown,” and later shattering our garage window. Those painful experiences taught me how quickly my family could be cast as outsiders.
And I remember Miss O’Hara again — not as an exception, but as an example. She didn’t make a speech or call a meeting. She noticed a child trying to live her faith with integrity, and she used her authority to make sure that child was not shamed for it.
As a graduate student, I once believed inclusive leadership was assured in liberal education. Then 9/11 happened. Suspicion spread. People retreated. Those of us who did not “look American” became visible in unsettling ways. The ease of pluralism gave way to the fragility of belonging.
Soon after, I traveled to Tajikistan for research. At the Dushanbe airport, a visa officer initially refused me entry. In that post-9/11 climate, my American nationality, Muslim name, and Middle Eastern appearance seemed to trigger alarm in a moment saturated with geopolitical fear and suspicion. I felt myself reduced to “the other.” Yet once I entered the country, something unexpected occurred. In remote reaches of the Pamir Mountains, I met Muslim villagers who apologized sincerely for the attacks of 9/11, calling them an assault on humanity itself.
These moments give me hope not because difference disappears, but because people sometimes choose conscience over fear. They remind me that honoring the sacred in others is not philosophy; it is a duty and responsibility.
Education, to me, has always been blessing and responsibility: to understand and serve creation. The social conscience of Islam reframes success, insisting: the question is not only what have I achieved, but what have I helped others achieve? Success is measured by how we steward our divine gifts — time, talent, and treasure — in service of society, not self. Jewish teachings on tikkun olam also resonate — the responsibility to repair the world, not as charity, but as obligation.
At Interfaith America, I focus on leadership development and institutional change — helping workplaces build systems that sustain belonging across beliefs so dignity, trust, and performance endure.
The call is not only personal, but professional. At Interfaith America, I focus on leadership development and institutional change — helping workplaces build systems that sustain belonging across beliefs so dignity, trust, and performance endure. For me, this work is faith in action: honoring the divine gift of diversity while building environments where people can contribute fully and responsibly — and where dignity is not left to individual goodwill, but treated as a leadership obligation and an institutional responsibility, embedded in how we lead, what we normalize, and the culture we sustain.
In seeing ourselves in the other, whether across the street or across the globe, I believe we are fellow seekers of truth on a shared journey home. When we recognize the light in one another, our differences no longer divide us — they guide us. And we discover that we are not meant to walk this path alone, but together — with humility, integrity, and purpose.
