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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Here we are in the first week of April. As it happens this year, as we've been talking about on the show, Easter Week, Ramadan and Passover are all happening at the same time. The three Abrahamic religions, as they're called, are all in Holy Months. Easter is coming this Sunday, today by my count is day 11 of the month of Ramadan and tomorrow night begins 8 nights of Passover. Get ready to hide the Afikoman and have a good prize for whichever child finds it.

Now we will continue our series of call-ins on your relationship to your religion. It was for Christians yesterday, it will be for Jews tomorrow. Right now for Muslim listeners, our phones are open in this middle of the month of Ramadan. We invite you to answer any or all of these three questions. How does your Muslim identity inform your sense of yourself? How does your belief in Islam or Islamic identity, if you want to use the identity frame, inform your ethics in your personal life or in your politics? How does your practice of Islam differ from your parents?

We had some good young Christian calls on this. Again, especially for people under 40, is your Islam in practice, or in your spiritual life different from that of your baby boomer parents, for example, or your immigrant parents? 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. 212-433-9692, for anyone right now who identifies as Muslim. We did ask those same questions for Christian listeners yesterday, and we'll invite Jewish listeners on them tomorrow. One program note on that, by the way, it was originally going to be Thursday as we announced it for Jewish listeners but I was reminded that for some observant Jews, the first two days of Passover, Thursday and Friday mornings are like the Sabbath, where calling a radio show would not be allowed.

To have as many Jewish listeners available to call in from all denominations, we've moved that call-in up to tomorrow morning, but for today, how does your Muslim identity inform your sense of yourself? 212-433-WNYC. How does your practice of Islam or Islamic identity inform your ethics in your personal life or in your politics? How does your practice of Islam differ from your parents'? Answer any one or all three on this day, that is day 11, I think, of Ramadan. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

On the identity question. Is there such a thing for you as Muslim identity? We talk about identity a lot these days in the United States. Mike Pence, as I quoted yesterday, famously said, "I'm a Christian first, a conservative second, a Republican third." He didn't put American in the top three at all but he said he's a Christian first, a conservative second, a Republican third. Any Muslim who said, I'm a Muslim first and didn't even list American in the top three in the context of living in this country, a lot of other Americans would suspect you of being a terrorism sympathizer or something like that.

I guess Christian privilege protected Mike Pence and in many cases even celebrated him for that statement in the US context. Muslim listeners, we're inviting you to answer that intersectional question for yourself. 212-433-WNYC. Is Islam an identity group for you, like your race or your gender or other parts of you might be? If so, what is at the heart of Muslim identity for you? How do you put it into words? How does your Muslim identity inform your sense of yourself, in an intersectional sense, maybe your male or female, or non-binary or a Black or Bosnian or Arab or whatever part of your identity besides Muslim in a religious sense, intersects with it in ways that make up who you are? How would you describe that? 212-433-WNYC 433-9692.

Finally, how does your practice of Islam differ from your parents'? We're doing lots of generational call-ins this year on the show. How about if you're under 40 and your parents are baby boomers and you're Muslim? How does your practice of Islam or your Muslim identity differ from theirs? 212-433-WNYC. Whichever of these questions is something you think about or something you want to answer. Here during the month of Ramadan it's a call-in for anyone right now who identifies as Muslim. Ruby in Northern New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Ruby. Thanks for calling in.

Ruby: Thank you for having me. Good afternoon. I am a first-generation Pakistani Muslim. My mother is a practicing Muslim with a psychiatrist, and my sense of Islam differs 180 degrees from her. I don't pray, I drink but my sense of self of service comes from that. I think the reason I went into medicine is because I like the idea of Zakat and giving in Islam. I don't fast but I like the idea of intermittent fasting, I practice that and I tell my patients about that.

The only thing that I would like to say is that since you brought up the show, is that I often find it very difficult that people have a hard time accepting me as a social Muslim. They're shocked that a Muslim [inaudible 00:05:54] should have been wearing a hijab or I shouldn't have a bathing suit on, and I wouldn't be in a [unintelligible 00:06:00] and yet one of my Christian friends says, "Yes, I am Christian," but yet she's never stepped a foot in church, it's completely acceptable. I think that's a big thing. I like telling people that I'm Muslim but then I have to specify that I'm a social Muslim.

Brian Lehrer: Social Muslim. I think a lot of Jews who are identified culturally but not very observant in religious practice might call themselves secular Jews. That's a pretty common term. When you say social Muslim, why the word social? What is social Muslim actually?

Ruby: I think because I love celebrating the social aspect of it. I love the Idd celebration. I'll take my kids to that, but you probably would never find me in a mosque any other time. I think I like the whole idea of the Idd, instead of gifts, we get money. Everybody older than you gives money and everybody younger to you, you give it back. I think that when it shows up to decorating your homes, I'm always doing it but there's exclusively no other aspect of religion that that I do, or I even think or believe in.

I think it's really hard for my neighbors or even everyone else I know to understand that, yet I don't think that like you said, even for Jewish, secular Jewish, in fact that they have to walk on saying that. I just wish that as Americans we were just accepting of the fact that people could identify themselves as one of the Abrahamic religions, but not have an image of me wearing a hijab or going to a mosque or [unintelligible 00:07:30]

Brian Lehrer: Such a stereotypical typical image. Ruby, thank you. Please call us again. Ibrahim in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi Ibrahim.

Ibrahim: Thank you for giving the opportunity to share my thoughts. I'm from Togo, west Africa, and I'm here over 15 years ago. I have my religion or my practice of Islam differ from my parents, in that I'm educated person. My people or my parents didn't go to school so I get to be exposed to learn more about Islam. Today in the US, New York, I believe 10% of the population are Muslim. Islam is more well-understood. I understand better, and I can connect my religion with other religions.

As a professional, this month of Ramadan, it's a way for me to reflect on my rapport with other people, my relationship, how I care for people, and how I can become the better version of myself by thinking of the action, whatever I do in my community. Also, this month is a month of giving. We give more, we send more money in Africa, and we also contribute at Iftar. You try to save more and share what you have with other people.

We come as a community to show love and among 12 months, this is a month where we come together as a community and spiritually we get more innovative and we understand more the meaning of being a Muslim, not just the worship, the five daily prayers but also beyond that it's how can you be a good person to your neighbor. That's my contribution.

Brian Lehrer: You put it so, so beautifully, and it sounds like you find the deep meaning in the month of Ramadan that doesn't just make you feel good about yourself but makes you feel a responsibility toward others. That's what I'm hearing from you, right?

Ibrahim: Absolutely. That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ibrahim, that was great. Listeners, we may have had some problems with our phones in the last few minutes because we seem to have lost some callers who had called in. We actually do have open lines right now, a few open lines for any other Muslim listeners who want to call in on your sense of Muslim identity or sense of identity, and how it is informed by our Islamic faith, or how, as both of our first two callers have discussed, how their own practice is a little different from your parents. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Andy in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andy.

Andy: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a Muslim from Albania, and to bring back what Mike Pence said, I feel first Muslim, second American, and third, then have to go after my political beliefs. I do identify as a Muslim but I don't identify as a Muslim based on a certain group of people. I do identify as a Muslim based on a belief in God. I do believe in God, I do believe in Allah, but personally, I do not identify as a Muslim--

Most of the population belongs in South Asia and Middle Eastern, and being raised in Europe and then I migrate into America, I feel like I don't belong to a certain culture of Middle Eastern culture or South Asia culture. I believe more the European culture, who believes in Allah, which feels weird in certain places because even when you go to a mosque of the year, you see mostly the South Asian and Middle Eastern populations so I don't see a lot of people from my own background.

Brain Lehrer: Do you think Islam is expressed differently by people from the Arab world or South Asia than among European Muslims like yourself?

Andy: I think so, actually. I think there is a cultural background when it comes to practice in Islam. I think the European Islam, I think is more, not lighter, I'd say, than the South Asian or the Middle Eastern Islam, but it's more lenient. For example, when it comes to me and my parents, my parents were the whole tranche on Muslim, so they fast for the whole month of Ramadan, while a younger version of me, I only fast for the holy night, the night of the Quran. The Quran came down to us.

Brain Lehrer: That's, of course, part of the origin of Ramadan. It's the beginning of the giving of the Quran, and the first verses of the Quran are celebrated in Ramadan, I know. Andy, thank you. Let me go so I can get somebody in here before we run out of time, another caller. Khadija in Morris County you are WNYC. Hi, Khadija.

Khadija: Hi. I'm a first-generation American. Also, my family is from Afghanistan. I think the way that I practice that's different than my parents is that their Islam is a lot more cultural, whereas with me-- They tended to go to mosques that were more mostly Afghans, and, again, more culturally, Islam, whereas I tend to go to more diverse mosques, where I feel like I found a pure version of Islam, that takes the culture out. I actually even started wearing hijab before my mom did, and my parents were hesitant. They didn't want me to wear it, they were pushing me against it like, "You don't need to. Forget it."

I ended up wearing it on my own. I feel like it's made me become a better person because I am a symbol of Islam everywhere I go, and so I try to break stereotypes and try to smile more. I'm an attorney to break that whole stereotype of the oppressed Muslim woman and everything. I feel like how I practice is that it really does affect every aspect of my life and makes me want to be a better person to be the best example of Islam and the best example of what a Muslim-American woman looks like.

Brain Lehrer: Khadija thank you so much for your call please call us again. Well, some great calls from our Muslim listeners in this segment as we had great calls from Christian listeners yesterday. Tomorrow morning in the same segment, Jewish listeners on the morning before the first date or night of Passover as the holy month of Ramadan, Easter Week, and Passover week, all coincide this year.

That's The Brain Lehrer Show for it today produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, Esperanza Rosenbaum, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen, who produces our daily politics podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. Our interns this term are Trinity Lopez and Briana Brady. Stay tuned for Alison Stewart.

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