CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to Desperately Seeking Wisdom with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for people who want to lead a wiser, more fulfilled life. We hear from well-known people about what they've learned, particularly when things have been difficult, even traumatic. Our guest today is Professor Azza Karam, the Secretary General of Religions for Peace

AZZA

I was brought up to understand service, and giving. And actually all faiths point to that. And I think that really is the axis around which we would be turning. And Religions for Peace is all the different faith institutions and communities around the world, represented through their senior-most representative.

CRAIG

Azza has what might seem like the impossible job of finding common ground in the world's major religions, and working out how they can work together. As you'll hear, she does it by blending gentleness, grace, and sheer determination.

Azza, it’s great to see you. So how are you, and where are you?

AZZA

Thank you so much, it's wonderful to see you too. I am in New Rochelle, Westchester, in New York.

CRAIG

And how are you?

AZZA

I am well, thank you so very much. How are you?

CRAIG

I'm good, I'm good. I was just saying before we started recording, we're in a wet, rainy London, which is fairly typical. I wanted to start with your childhood, and particularly your mother, because she seem to have had a huge influence on you. And it was a complex relationship. Tell us about her and how she brought you up.

AZZA

She was one of the few women who was allowed to almost do her master's degree, at a time when it was rather rare for women to do this. She was a very determined person, and she not exactly had an easy life. She came from a relatively poor background brought up by a single mom with two other siblings. And it meant that she took absolutely nothing for granted. When she mothered myself and my brother, she was very determined that we also take absolutely nothing for granted. We had a life of relative privilege because my father was in the diplomatic service, so we travelled a lot, we lived in good places, we always had the best of education. But my mother's narrative always was: this could disappear at any moment. And it was extremely important for her to instil a sense of, I think I would say, deference, deep deference to faith, our culture - because our faith and our culture are not distinguished and are not to be distinguishable - but also obedience, obedience to what the elders say, what the religious communities say what our studies tell us to do. So having to be deeply obedient all the time and not questioning, absolutely not questioning anything, cause questioning meant disobedience, in a sense.

CRAIG

And were you obedient?

AZZA

Absolutely not. The more that I was pressured into that space the more I rebelled, and I had tonnes of questions to ask. So it was always a tug of war. I get the obedience part, I understand the logic and so on and so forth, but why should that preempt us asking questions and wanting to understand things, not just to take them as given, so to speak, especially things that involved ‘should or should not’. So yeah, I questioned.

CRAIG

How did the disobedience manifest itself?

AZZA

In multiple ways, some of them I probably shouldn't be talking about too publicly. I think in principle, it meant, you know, ‘don't be later than so and so’ - I was always later than such and such. Don't speak to boys, for instance, or men - and I would make a point of making sure that I was rather familiar and friendly with as many folks around me as possible. My mother erred on the side of being very conservative, both she and my father. So there literally was a rule saying do not speak to males, ever - school, university etc. just don't speak to them. You know, if you absolutely must, you can say, good morning, or good afternoon. But really, a word beyond that is absolutely unacceptable. So of course, I made a point of having plenty words beyond that. And what are you working on, how are you approaching this research or whatever - I made a conversation.

CRAIG

What did she do when she caught you being disobedient?

AZZA

She tended to be very disciplinarian. She would make sure that there was a punishment involved of having disobeyed her, but more I think out of her concern and fear that I would become one of those women - which effectively I believe I have become - that has a very strong opinion and doesn't listen quietly to what must be. So she was very worried about that. And she made sure she could let me know that that was not supposed to happen.

CRAIG

It sounds like she feared that it would go badly for you if you didn't follow that path.

AZZA

Yeah, indeed, you've just summarised I don't know how many years of therapy, that's exactly what was the case. And I understand, as I grow older myself, now I understand where it was coming from. It was her own experience, set of experiences when she was one of the few women social workers in Egypt, and almost all the women around her in her office of the Ministry of Social Affairs eventually wore the veil. Like, they had all grown up and finished university and done their thing without the veil. And then there was this wave in the 80s, where all women - Muslim women - had to wear the veil, and she was one of the very few, along with a Coptic Christian colleague, who just didn't wear that veil. And I think that she herself, I've effectively inherited part of her rebelliousness as well. And because she suffered it enormously, I think she was doing her best to try to protect me from having to go through that.

CRAIG

It's so interesting, isn't it? Because you talked about therapy, that kind of thing - when we go back and look at this sort of thing, we realise that our parents did love us in their own way, but sometimes it is bound up with fear and that fear can have a toxic effect as well.

AZZA

That's right, I think that's very right. I mean, on the one hand, I think parents love all the time, it's impossible for a parent not to love I would think - I would think! - but on the other hand, I think the challenge is how do you imbue the ones that you love very dearly with the lessons you've received in life so that they can be better protected, but at the same time, not pass on a very fundamental feeling that all humans have, which is fear. We are born with fear, I think. And so it is a very delicate balancing act. And it's extremely difficult for the average parent to figure it out, because even though there are tonnes of books on parenting, each one of us is so unique as an individual, our relationships with our families are so incredibly unique, there's no book on every single one of us how to bring us up.

CRAIG

But that relationship, that core mother-child relationship, and I think, often looking from the outside, as a male, like the mother-daughter thing, it can be terribly pure, and wonderful and lovely, and you know, instilled with energy, that kind of thing - but it also can just go wrong. That means that there's a tension in the relationship going forward, and also how you try and make your way and navigate your way in the world.

AZZA

Yes, no, I believe that those relationships influence us greatly and certainly. And it's interesting, because the older I grow, the more I think and remember my mother and her reactions and her feelings, and the more I actually feel I understand them now in retrospect, but I absolutely couldn't understand or fathom any of it as a teenager growing up into the 20s, and 30s. I think I look back now and I have a much deeper understanding of what she was trying to do and what she herself was going — because she never spoke about her feelings, her fears, her concerns, she really never did. But now I'm sort of, I'm hearing her voice speaking, as she never did. But I'm hearing it from the perspective of now being in my 50s, near 60, and thinking, you know, reflecting on all of that deep wisdom that went somewhere deep inside me, and I'm now slowly, slowly retrieving and finding myself wishing that I could still have her around to have the conversations now, but it's not possible.

CRAIG

And she gathered items from when you were born with the idea that you would need them to make a home. Was that weird at the time?

AZZA

No, it's a very traditional practice in my part of the world, where from the moment that a girl is born, the parents start thinking of the trousseau. So in the Middle East, the tradition is that the husband-to-be and his family have to pay the dowry. So it's the opposite of what happens in South Asia. The husband-to-be and his family have to pay the dowry, but the parents already start to compile, put together - especially the mother - the things that the daughter will need once she is married, in her marital home, everything from towels and bed sheets to items that are, you know, for the house, for the decoration, things that she — you know, cutlery, silverware, all that stuff. So I knew that this is what had to happen, so to speak, and I always found it rather fascinating because my taste was very different from my mother's and I was always saying, well, don't you think we could wait a bit and, you know, I could join you in choosing what that stuff should be. But it was, it was her joy actually, I learned that also later, it was her joy to do so. She wanted to provide everything so that I would need nothing. And I realise - again, in retrospect - that she didn't have that opportunity. She had to start little by little when she was married to get the things she needed and she was just trying to spare me that so that I could walk into a house that's fully, almost fully furnished from every single thing one could possibly conceive of, it was all there. And the very best quality.

CRAIG

And there was a clock going off in the background, we should mention that wasn't one of the things in the trousseau, was it? No? Okay, but I suspect it's gonna go off every 15 minutes, so we should probably reference it. No, no, not at all. Don't worry about it at all. But look, it's nice, on one level, your mother sort of thinking that way, but on another it's very controlling, isn't it?

AZZA

Yes, yes. I can't deny that one. Yes.

CRAIG

And another area where she was controlling was that you had to study the Arabic and English curriculums, side by side, when you were growing up. Did you resent that? Or did you feel stimulated?

AZZA

It was the full Arabic school curriculum, which included geography and history and physics and biology, and then with the curriculum of whatever I was studying in an American or a British school. So it was two sets of curriculums from A to Z. And the only thing that was different, obviously, was that the Arabic school curriculum also included - and that was her key, for which I am now, again, in retrospect, deeply grateful - Arabic language, Arabic literature. So I wasn't just reading Shakespeare in high school, I was also reading Ibn Arabi and all sorts of Arabic stuff.

CRAIG

I mean, obviously, they're going to be very different. But did you notice the huge cultural differences when you were growing up, just by seeing them side by side?

AZZA

There's a two-part answer to that, and I'm sorry I have to be so detailed. Part answer number one is this: the biology, physics and chemistry was pretty much the same, the history was pretty much the same. But in the biology - and this, I noticed in high school - there was one, only one thing that was different, and that was the point where we were having to study the anatomy and sexuality and whatever. And in the British school curriculum, when we were studying biology, and we were learning about the basic needs of any human being, you know, food, water, shelter, clothing, etc. Then there was one - and that was the same, of course, in the biology in the Arabic school curriculum - but one very distinct difference that I could not help but notice, which is that in the British school curriculum, it had added another basic need, which is sex, which did not exist in the Arabic school curriculum. So I was absolutely fascinated - but wait a minute, wait a minute, sex is a basic need? Really, it's a basic need? So for me that was like a light bulb going on about, wait a minute, that's not there in the Arabic — what, do Arabs don’t have sex as a basic need, or what exactly is this? Because remember, it's about Arabic school, it wasn't about Islamic and Christian it was never that.

CRAIG

Did you have a chance to raise that with people or were you embarassed?

AZZA

The only teacher I had was my mother. And we.. there was sort of an unspoken thing that we didn't talk about these things at all, it was just a conversation took place once, when one reached puberty, so that my mother could explain what that meant, and what that was, and how it was now important to be even more controlled, even more careful, even less talkative, etc. But that really, it immediately went into the social behaviours and characteristics, absolutely nothing to do with body, beyond that this is going to happen every month.

CRAIG

So you noticed a tightening and even more controlling when you hit puberty?

AZZA

Yes, I was taught very clearly, you are no longer a child. And all those rules I've been telling you are becoming even more firm now. Because now you're going to be, not only yourself, judged as whether you're decent or not as a human being, but your family, we will now be judged, according to your behaviour. This family's honour is now on you. So you now have to look after not just yourself, but you have to look after your family. Your entire family is now around your neck, that, what do you call it? The reputation of the family is now around your neck.

CRAIG

And you say that, you know, the religion is the culture and the culture is the religion when you're growing up. Did you feel that somehow the religion got it backwards or wrong? Was it confusing to you? Or did you feel there's something wrong here?

AZZA

Yes, I did. And I think that was part of the reason why there was such a, if you will, almost a determination to rebel. Because I had learned from, I would say, a relatively young age, that there's this thing, there's this God. There's a being called God who created us and everything around us and so on. I'd learned that as a child. It, to me it wasn't called Islam. It was never Islam is this, but it was all about God and creation and relationships with us and what it meant. And so I noticed that my Coptic Christian friends and myself were in the same boat in terms of how our parents were very, were instructing us about what the religious norms meant for the social norms in our lives. So at that time, it was very clear to me that on the one hand, they're supposed to be this very loving God, who's also capable of tremendous punishment. But at the same time, I'm hearing about this God, and I'm getting God from the parent perspective, which felt contrary. So the parent perspective was all about don't, don't, don't don't. And yet something inside me, deep inside me felt that well, there's supposed to be this fountain of love idea - which I was so convinced by, I don't know where I got that impression, and it might have been from the way that I would observe my parents when they were praying, when they were praying, they were in love. They were very much in love as they prayed, and you could see their faces. And I would observe very clearly, as a child, that act of prayer was something deeply precious for both of them. And I thought, well, you can't look like that, and presumably feel like that, and then be that very deeply harsh disciplinarian in the name of God. So there must be something there.

CRAIG

But there's something very interesting in that isn't there, because I think a lot of people who maybe don't have faith or do have faith, but don't associate with institutionalised religion, sort of look at it and kind of feel like that often, there's a kind of, I will give you huge love, and I will be this amazing beneficent force and kindness and love will flow from me, unless you don't do exactly as I say, in which case, I will smite you and punish you. And I think a lot of people have a lot of trouble with that. And it sounds like you did too.

AZZA

Yes, I definitely did. And, but you see, the thing about I will smite you and punish you - which was definitely very much alive - came through figures of authority, especially family, parents, and sometimes teachers. So there was always this hidden part of me that was, well, this is God. Now, it may be coming through, he may be coming through these folks, but part of me always refused to accept that that was it. But there was this, and still is, this very, very significant part of me that thinks, no, the relationship I have with God is not mediated by anybody, any institution, any figures of authority, that's not God.

CRAIG

Aren’t a lot of the institutions gonna say that's all very well Azza, I'm sure you do have a personal relationship, but hang on, we've got 1000s of years of history on our side, the texts are pretty clear on this. So you can make up your own religion if you want, but that's a very, very narrow, selfish thing to do. Is that not what they say?

AZZA

All the time, They still tell me that. They, absolutely. That's, but that's the claim to authority, isn't it?

CRAIG

And what's your response to that?

AZZA

Thank you for your opinion. I do, however, have know and learned enough myself about when I read my own holy books, and all the other holy books, to understand that it isn't mediated by anybody. I give my respect to that perspective, but I don't believe it for a second.

CRAIG

I want to get back a bit more on the biographical stuff, it sounds that there were some pretty damaging moments with your parents, particularly when you decided to do a PhD. So she almost felt like that you've gone too far in terms of your learning, and that a woman should stop at this point and shouldn't keep going. And it sounds like that that was quite a fundamental fracture in your relationship.

AZZA

It was. Looking at it in retrospect, I realised that for my mother, and she said this very clearly, she said, listen, as a woman with a PhD, the chances of finding a decent man who's going to be able to cope with your achievement, shall we say - she would never say your intelligence, it was always your multiple achievements - is going to be very difficult because men struggle to cope with the simplest of us women. So you're going to find it extremely difficult, or you're going to end up an old lonely spinster. So I strongly recommend that you don't go in that path, and just enough already, you've got your masters what is it that's eating you that you should continue to study, even though she herself was someone who loved to study, hence, she also studied the entire curriculum from elementary school all the way to university with me, lovingly!

CRAIG

It's so interesting listening to that, because what she seems to be saying is that you and I know we're just as smart as any men, but - or smarter than any man, I'm willing to take that - but we also know that if you don't behave in a way that they feel comfortable with, then you will be sad and lonely and you should be afraid of that. That seems to be screwed up on so many levels, I don't even know where to start.

AZZA

Say one of them, just mentioned one of them in your mind that you feel is-

CRAIG

Well, it's just the sheer idea that you know, in your head and your heart, that you're just as good if not better, but you actually have to pretend not to be in order to be happy in your private life.

AZZA

Craig, I got something very honest to tell you, which is that that's the way women all over the world work, by the way.

CRAIG

And for centuries have done…

AZZA

For centuries, which is also in some way pro-woman, or otherwise known as feminist depictions is understood as it's your survival strategy. And/or it's the reason why there's so much misogyny in today's world because quite frankly, there isn't any reason for this misogyny beyond this unbearable need to subdue the creature, or the creatures from whom there is simply too much wisdom or whatever.

CRAIG

But interesting, I mean, and a kind of collusion in that though, isn't there, all sorts of belief that you will be forced down, if you don't, there'll be violence used against you or people will suppress you? And I know, I suppose there's plenty of evidence for that.

AZZA

Plenty of evidence for that, and we're living it on a daily basis. If you look around you today, why is rape a weapon of war, Craig? Why on Earth would torturing a woman's body be a weapon of war? Rape is increasingly used as a weapon of w- WHY, WHY? What's the need for that? What is the need? One of the images that I will never forget, during the Arab Spring in Cairo, Tahrir Square, was one particular young woman who suddenly got set upon by a whole bunch of military men. They were kicking her and kicking her and kicking her, the folks and the men in uniform, she was almost half-dead on the ground and naked with nothing but a blue bra and, and the image of that continuous violence against - I mean, what could that one woman do against a whole group of men with guns? Where is all this hatred, where is this violence coming from?

CRAIG

Well, so, this is a good question to somebody of faith, which you are, where is all this hate and violence coming from?

AZZA

I think there's a remarkable sense in which fear is the dominant vector of all our feelings. And the more our lives are changing in such dramatic ways, I mean, think of it, where young women would walk for miles to get water from the well, that well is dried up, they have to walk for longer places. Where they went to get to the, to find the little lake to wash their utensils, that water is dried up and dirty. From the very basic fundamental level, we have very little clean water to drink in most parts of the world today, not to mention everything else that's ravaging our environment in terms of fires and floods and whatnot. And then we have a pandemic. I am so sorry, there goes the clock again, I really never realised it was every 15 minutes. Well, there you go. Anyway, sorry, shall we just continue then?

CRAIG

So what you're saying, I think is really fascinating, but is a really good question to somebody of faith, there is violence, there is mistreatment of people in the world, things are motivated in fear. How do you have this belief in a force of all powerful good when you see these levels of violence and bad behaviour that go on and have gone on for millennia?

AZZA

I think I'm one of those people who believes that it's precisely because of the violence humans are capable of perpetrating, that one has to believe in something much more powerful, and much more good and much more compassionate. So we aspire to that, in order to give us the strength to cope with what we're seeing, in terms of human less-than-perfection, shall we put it very politely. And I would see a correlation between more violence, more hatred, more whatever, and more faith in something much better and much more decent and much more loving.

CRAIG

I understand that. And I think one of the things that we often talk to people about in these interviews is, we live in a world where good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. And a lot of people struggle with the way that that is. And they think, well look, if the system has been set up in that way, there must be something fundamentally wrong with it. So I can see you sort of shaking your head.

AZZA

There's a certain arrogance, if you will, in believing that that our behaviour is, an ‘us’ in this world is all there is. Right? So this is it. This is as good as it gets. I think that's remarkably arrogant, to be honest. And an arrogance to me is a very, is part of the major problem. Just as we now know that planet Earth is not the only planet in this universe, human beings are not the only living things that matter, that in fact the blade of grass outside, and every tree and every bud is just as important and just as critical and necessary for our life, every bee, everything, everything that lives is important and is interdependent.

CRAIG

So basically you're saying we're part of a greater whole.

AZZA

We are, and we aren't capable of managing all of this on our own, we are absolutely interdependent. And that interdependence is about, is fundamentally about our diversity. And our diversity to me, is the most telling sign that there is a divine creation.

CRAIG

And this, is that greater whole God?

AZZA

Yes, I think God exists in everything, and is part of everything, just as we are part of God.

CRAIG

Do you think that when you die, we go off to another dimension? And you know, we worship God for eternity, or, you know, part of another world? Or do you think that's it?

AZZA

I am not qualified to answer that question, Craig, I wonder what you think about it?

CRAIG

I think probably not. But I'm willing to say that I don't have the answers, and I don't know. And is it possible that I'll be surprised? Yes. But I think on balance, probably not. And I think where I've kind of got to and the big shift for me was, I found life a bit of a trial and something that I felt I needed to get through. And when somebody pointed out that, isn't it just amazing that you're here and you're on this amazing planet, and said, yes, there are downsides, and yes, there are some trials and tribulations. But overall, would you choose it to be any different, or, would you choose not to be here? And the answer, of course, is no, I wouldn't. And maybe that's enough. And that's okay. We don't need to have this idea that we live forever and for eternity.

AZZA

I think you've put it beautifully, quite honestly. I would only say, as a subtext that it's, I sincerely wish and hope and pray, the life we lead now is not all there is. I sincerely hope and pray that there is, that there's more, that there's beyond, that there is evolution, that there is striving towards something better.

CRAIG

You were brought up in the, you know, the Islamic tradition and religion. But it sounds to me that a lot of what you're saying feels much more a sort of Buddhist-type way of looking at the world. Is that wrong?

AZZA

No, it's not wrong. I think that, you see, I think we look at religions much the same way, as we have been trained to do, since the times of the Industrial Revolution, I think, which is to put things in neat categories, which, for many, means efficiency. But I think we look at religion like that, as you know, in distinct clear categories. So Buddhism is a religion that says ABC, Hinduism is a religion that says DEF, etc. And the truth is that we still have Buddhists and Hindus and many others who say, it's not about being a religion, actually, it isn't even looked at from that perspective. You can't compare the Christianity and its various institutions with Hinduism or Buddhism, they're not, it's not like that. And it's true, there's much to be understood about the fact that all faiths have messages that actually are extraordinarily alike, extraordinarily alike. And all of which are supposed to be geared towards us being better humans in this space.

CRAIG

But I think some people would say that actually, Christianity and Islam, for example, have a lot of basis in, if you don't do the right thing, you'll be judged. And Buddhism is much more, comes from a space of look, we all make mistakes, maybe if you try a bit harder, but essentially that some of the religions seem quite hard line in terms of the level of judgement, and others seem slightly more forgiving, or come at it from a gentler point of view.

AZZA

I think that that's the textbook, old textbook understanding and interpretation of different religions. To be honest, in every faith tradition, starting from the Indigenous People's faiths, in different parts of the world, there is an understanding that you reap what you sow. It's a very basic notion, actually, of all faiths. All faiths. Now. How it gets conveyed is extremely culturally attuned. In some cases, the whole notion of ‘reap what you sow’ has to do with agricultural context. So you understand that this is how you grow the rice, etc. But there is not a single faith tradition out there that says you can do anything you want, and nothing's going to happen.

CRAIG

What's interesting is that you are not really distinguishing too much between the religions and you're looking for a kind of commonality there. And it sounds to me like you're talking about having your own personal faith. That seems to be a place where you've reached is that right? Am I understanding you right?

AZZA

My understanding of Islam is that it is fundamentally the same message of all faiths and all prophets and all religious leaders, if you will, around the world, witch is how to be a much more compassionate, loving, responsible, measured human being in our lives, how to be caring, and how to basically take responsibility for ourselves and for the world that we live in. How to do so, what does that take? What does that mean? What does that involve? I think all faiths try to get us to do that. Now, if we thought that, there was this common saying that all the roads lead to Rome, not quite sure where we think that all the faiths don't lead to the same direction, also, which is that of being better humans in our lifetimes. And imagine if every one of us was to take that message seriously and do our best to honour it, I think we would have a very different world than the one we have now.

CRAIG

I was brought up in the Christian tradition and went to church every week. And basically they said, God became so fed up with the world he decided to send his son as an example. They executed him in the most extreme way possible, and his blood sacrifice allows you to come to God. And if you have faith in Him, then you're okay. Now, that is very clear in Christianity, it is very clear. And because of his spilt blood, our sin is atoned for. Now, we can talk about that being figurative. And we can talk about that being literal, but it is there. And it's very different to what, when you read Islam, and it's very different to when you read, you know, Buddhism, or Hinduism, or that kind of thing. They don't have such an explicit path. They have their own things, but they are very explicit, and lots of people have died over the century saying, this is right, and you are wrong. And it is right to be a Muslim, or it is right to be a Christian, and I will kill in the name of it, because if you don't believe in what we believe in, then it's all wrong. You can't really ignore that, can you?

AZZA

No, absolutely not. And I think, and I think perhaps killing in the name of religion is one of the worst atrocities we could ever commit as humans. And it's about as bad as killing this Earth, this planet is through our behaviour. Because we are killing our faith by killing this planet, we are killing our faith, and killing in the name of our faith in some cases. You know, the other version of the story that you painted and described from the Christian tradition is, is one of the immensity of love, the immensity, the immeasurable vastness of love. To me, the ability to be touched by the love of the Divine, is when we all come together from different faith traditions, and we try to approach the divine together through service, and service to others, which ultimately comes back to us actually, but it is when different faiths come together. But I really believe that, that coming together as different faiths, in service, is the most amazing way of being in touch with the divine, of living that message of the Divine.

CRAIG

OK, That's very interesting hearing you talk about that. And of course, we'll talk a little bit more about your sort of day job, about how that happens in a moment. But I wanted to deal with the faith aspect of that, you say that you feel like that you know that faith can move mountains, when people come together and believe, just to help unpack that.

AZZA

I was brought up to understand that Islamic tradition demanded service, and giving in service of faith. But from what I've studied is that actually all faiths point to that and say, you really ought to be of service. And not only to live for yourself, but to live in service of others, including other living species, by the way. I think we can't continue to live believing that it's all about me, myself and I, and when we extend it we extend it only to the people that we happen to take into account. I don't think that that modula has served us well at all. And I think our planet is screaming at us that that's not the right way to live.

CRAIG

And we live in a world also of disease and chance. And as we said earlier, you know, bad things happening to good people and that kind of thing. I noticed in one of the things I read about you that you felt that there isn't sort of necessity for us to go through hardship to learn. Do you think that's right?

AZZA

No, I don't think it's necessary. But I do think that many of us sort of need that reality check in our lives because the tendency to go inward and to become so insular and self-serving is so strong. Hardships are like that fork in the road that we all encounter, you're forced to make a decision, you're either gonna go this way or you're gonna go that way, but you can't walk in both separate directions. So I think hardships are an opportunity to be honest. Either you continue as you are, or you fundamentally learn to live differently.

CRAIG

And so God is the desire and wish to help and care, partly?

AZZA

Godly is that desire to serve, and to serve lovingly, compassionately, mercifully. I do believe that that's what God ultimately is, it's that spirit of goodness within every one of us.

CRAIG

I want to focus on your role as Secretary General for Religions and Peace. How do you become such a thing?

AZZA

You have to apply for the job?

CRAIG

Did you really apply for it? Nobody came up to you and just said, I reckon you'll be really good at this.

AZZA

I mean, of course, that works in many, many contexts, many positions, where people come up and say, why don't you apply, we think you'd be perfect for this kind of a position. But the case in this institution, I think, as with many others, is that you go through an interview process, and so on. The only difference I've noticed from many other positions I've worked in over my career is that in this case, it was the first time ever, that those sitting on an interview panel, were religious leaders from every single faith, very senior religious leaders from different faith traditions, and I remember just absolutely enjoying the experience, quite frankly.

CRAIG

And what did they ask you?

AZZA

They asked all sorts of questions. What motivates you? What do you think you're going to do once you're in this position? What, why would you do that? So it was a traditional set of questions that you would get in any interview, but there was always a sequel. But why? Like, why would you do so? What would you do? Okay, I’d do ABC. Why?

CRAIG

And what is the day job? Give me an idea of what it entails.

AZZA

Okay. So, Religions for Peace is all the different faith institutions and communities around the world, represented through their senior-most representative. They sit together on something called the World Council, which is basically the governing board. And what do they do? They of course, they regularly meet and discuss and debate with one another, as governments do in the UN. But they also work at the national level together to serve. They have programmes, projects, initiatives in which they pool their resources - moral, financial, educational, health care, nutrition and sanitation, infrastructure, to actually serve.

CRAIG

So there must be endless programmes. Give me an example of one that you're proud of and you think really were...

AZZA

One was, you may remember the height of the HIV and AIDS phenomenon, in which people were dying en masse, getting infected and dying, and there was this extraordinarily stigmatising attitude by many faith leaders and institutions that was there at the beginning. You have HIV because you have, quote unquote, errant sexual morals and practices, you kind of deserve this. And that stigmatisation was deeply wounding. So on so many levels, the stigma was part of the cycle that ultimately caused more deaths and more infection rates. And it was absolutely important to tackle that source at the beginning, and to effectively showcase their theology of compassion, rather than their theology of reprimand and judgement, which was rampant at that time. There were lessons there in those religious communities that then happened and were implemented during the Ebola crisis. And that were then built upon and used during the latest pandemic of COVID-19.

CRAIG

I love listening to your passion and compassion. But I suppose I should slightly confess that when I was thinking about doing this interview, I was a little resistant. And I think it's because I'm innately resistant to organised religion. And it feels to me that at its worst, it can do so much damage and often ends up diametrically opposed to what some of the original teachings are.

AZZA

Yeah, you're absolutely correct, Craig. I find that I have to distinguish between an institution and a faith. Of course, we take what the religious institutions do seriously, because as we take the political institutions, the financial institutions, the intergovernmental - every government, and political parties, trade unions, etc. All of these institutions have a problem today, they're all failing miserably in different ways, all our institutions, including our religious institutions, why do we think that they should be set apart, because they believe in something very good? Technically, all these institutions, government and others are supposed to be built and geared towards the greater good. And this is why the day job is so important because it's the day job, and the afternoon job and the night job, to be able to see it and create the space where different faiths come together. And in so doing, hold each other accountable to that greater good.

CRAIG

Listen, I'm with you. And I like what you're saying, I suppose what I also know is that there's plenty of people from all the different types of religion who’ll say, well hang on a minute, that's all very well Azza and Craig, I'm very glad that you've come to your own conclusion here, but we have hundreds of years of history and following this, and we do need to have some guidance. And that basically, what you're doing is creating some kind of spiritual free-for-all here.

AZZA

Not so much a spiritual free-for-all. But let's bring it to your world. 100 years of war between Catholics and Protestants in the Western Hemisphere. In those 100 years of war, you had the institutions of war with one another, and people dying en masse for the sake of this one, or that one, religion. But you also had coexisting people of faith, people of faith from different Christian sides of the spectrum. That's how we got the Quakers, for instance, who coexisted and insisted on non-violence in the midst of that conflict.

CRAIG

And there certainly are very good examples of that compassion. But there's also a hell of a lot of examples of not having that compassion.

AZZA

In my part of the world, you have groups, non-state actor groups, like al-Qaeda, and so on, and Daesh and their ISIS group. And you think, okay, I can look at the Muslim world through the prism of that, or I can look at the Muslim world through the prism of the multitudes, multitudes of Muslim communities who not only would not find that in any way, shape, or form representing them and in fact, have serious problems with it, but who live and serve together in absolute harmony, including at the height of conflicts. And what we did just a couple of months ago, is we brought together religious leaders from Russia, from Ukraine, from Ethiopia, Eritrea, etc, who were on opposite sides of conflicts, right? We convene them together in a round table, for them to actually have the opportunity to talk with one another, even though their respective communities are actually fighting each other and killing each other. But to have that time out, all of them, regardless of the context of the conflict, kept distinguishing between their faith and the politics that were being enacted in the names of their faith. They, as religious leaders, were making that distinction.

CRAIG

We're coming towards the end of the interview, but I want to come back to a question I missed out, because we sort of moved on to other things. But when you met your husband, and he came from a different faith background, that's right? I think I get this right that that your parents, you know, they rejected the fact certainly initially that you were having a relationship with him, that you shouldn't be together. And I just wondered if you could reflect on that.

AZZA

I told you I was a rebel, that I nevertheless insisted on getting married without their blessing, and then wanting to make peace with them. And, you know, as parents, they were thinking. really? There was a tradition in Egypt and in many parts of the Arab world, where if a groom wants to ask for the hand in marriage, then the family of the woman needs to inquire about the history of this groom's family. And so for my father, because my husband came from Sri Lanka, my father's question to me was, how on earth am I going to inquire about the family? And this is 32 years ago. So you know, the idea that you could go on Google perhaps and start googling certain people was absolutely not there. But the other part of it, of course, was that he was of a different religion. Does he at least respect your religion? Will he be able to understand our family, because religion and culture are such an important part of us.

CRAIG

But you went through a stage of them not talking to you?

AZZA

I missed the chance to speak to them on a weekly basis when I was living abroad, it was part of my nourishment as a human being to be able to call them up. And you know, remember, we spoke earlier about the mother preparing for this future home, marital home of her daughter and putting all these things together over many, many years. My mother's feeling at that time was, I deprived her of the opportunity to help set my home up. I'd gone and got married without giving her a chance to even help put all that stuff that she'd accumulated over so many years for me together. For her it was a wound, and I was suddenly cut off from knowing their news and what they were up to. I couldn't, they wouldn't answer me when I called, and that's when I realised, both my husband and I said okay, I'm suffering this estrangement, they must be suffering it too. But we understood their sense of being actually having been thrown away by me.

CRAIG

But you're being very understanding and very empathetic in this to them. And I think that's really laudable. But you obviously went through a lot of pain because of it.

AZZA

My husband and I went on a peace mission. I'm telling you, it beats all that other peace negotiation stuff of different communities, groups and countries, this was probably a heck of a lot more complicated. It took not only me going and saying, I am sorry, in person, and giving a chance for all of us to weep over it together. But before that, it took a couple of very important steps. It took literally mobilising family and friends to go to them and say, you know, something, it's okay. She's your daughter, she loves you. She's here. She wants to make peace, can you not forgive her? Can you not be the parents to forgive, we even had all sorts of strategies and manoeuvres to see if we could get my husband and my father in the same mosque on the same Friday, Jamaat prayer so that my father would see him and he would walk up to my father and, you know, bow to him and try to shake his hand and so on. And my father took his hand. And when that happened, when that act happened in a mosque on a Friday, during a Jamaat prayer, we knew when my father took my husband's extended hand in that mosque, we knew we could now go to the house. Together, the whole family was going to descend on that, you know, cousins and aunts and uncles, to accompany him to my father's house, in order to now formally make the peace. It was a beautiful story.

CRAIG

Yes, it's a lovely story. We're coming to the end of the interview now, and the one question we always ask at the end is, if there was one piece of wisdom you could pass on, what would it be? What would yours be?

AZZA

That God's compassion encompasses everything and everyone at all times, and we must never, never give up on that.

CRAIG

Let's just unpack that a bit. I mean, the standard response to that would be that people go through extremely painful things where, you know, they lose children to disease or violence, they, you know, wars happen, families are torn apart, terrible, terrible things happen. You talked about, you know, rape as a weapon of war earlier. How do you help people understand that God's compassion is everywhere, when that kind of thing is going on?

AZZA

The truth is that we can't assume that it's only when things are fine and happy and good and joyful, that we will find the divine, the Divine is also, in fact, perhaps most present, when we are in those immense moments of pain and anguish. And I love that story, that which is where God and somebody are walking on a beach together, and you can see the footprints of God in that person. And so at the hardest, harshest moment of that person's life, he looks down, and he sees it's only one set of footprints, How come only I was walking, there was only one set of footprints. And the response of the Divine is, actually in those moments, I carried you.

CRAIG

And I'm a journalist by trade, I started off life as a journalist. So I always push people a bit in these moments. Isn't that a bit of a survivor's message? So the survivor can take comfort from that. But if you don't survive, and you're wiped out by something, or something terrible happens to you, you die or whatever. It's hard to see that you're being carried at that moment. You know, there are lots of people who, you know, die in terrible circumstances.

AZZA

Indeed, and how do you know, Craig, what happens to those people when they die? Have we already judged that they die, and there's nothing there and end of story?

CRAIG

It's a great question, but you know, because it is a question doesn't necessarily mean it's so.

AZZA

It's the survivor’s narrative that matters, we cannot judge what happens to those who don't survive. I mean, we can't make predictions in our life about that. We don't know what happens to those who don't survive. But if the survivors narrative tells us this, to me, that's the most important narrative we need.

CRAIG

That's a great point to finish it on. Azza, we take a lot of your time, you've been incredibly generous. Thank you very much.

In a world where religious discussions often turn into arguments, and leaders can see more political than spiritual, Azza is a breath of fresh air, focusing on the practical good that can be done when we emphasise what unites us. Next week our guest is Jacqui Smith, the first female Home Secretary. She was forced to resign after it emerged her husband had been claiming parliamentary expenses for pornographic films.

Jacqui Smith

I was driving back to my constituency, my special adviser rang me up and said, the newspapers have got a story about your expenses, that you claimed for pornography. It was just gut-wrenching. Did I think I could tough it out? I'm not, I don't know if I did, but I didn't think it was the worst thing that anybody had ever done.

CRAIG

She's frank about how she faced up to that, and rebuilt her life. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast, please do, and why not leave a review. Desperately Seeking Wisdom was produced by Sarah Parker for Creators Inc. Until next time, goodbye.