No one known one. [inaudible] we are going to start. Im the Community Relations manager at the nyu bookstore. This is part of our event series, an ongoing series that we have been having here for the past seven years. Featuring nyu alumni, like tonight with as well as nyu faculty and the General Community as well. It is a pleasure to be hosting tonight. Welcome to nyu. It is a pleasure to have you here. We are going to hear from the author then have time for questions and answers and a book signing. Want to start the evening by giving a brief introduction. The author has been very active since graduating from nyu. I dont know if i will cover everything. But i will leave it up to him to fill the gaps. Our author is currently a senior fellow and director of global studies. His commentator and broadcaster who wishes he could be a writer. I think you are. I actually very much enjoy your writing. Among other things he is the muslim leadership at the heartland institute. He has appeared in all Major Networks on his essays and reviews have been published in such publications as the washington post, time, cnn, guardian, form policy, and. He is author of a novel, the order of lights published by penguin in 2006. In tonights event is a launch of his new book, how to be a muslim, and american story. That is published by beacon press in boston and we think beacon press for helping us make this happen. Maroon was previously at National Center of security and a fellow with the National Security studies program that new america foundation. He served as director of Public Relations at the Islamic Center. Her room holds an ma in middle eastern and south Asian Studies from columbia university, where i understand you are currently a phd candidate. So, you can tell us more about that. His field of study includes muslim nationalism in south asia, colonial and postcolonial islamic politics. In the development of the indian ocean economy. I think sort of differently than your previous work, this is a very personal book. So i will leave it at that. If i may, it is a real pleasure to welcome our author, well talk a bit later and have time for question and answer. [applause] hello. I am pretty loud, so i dont know if i need the mic. But, you need the mic since you are recording. Cameras follow me everywhere, its called be a muslim. That was a joke. You can laugh. So i wanted to read a section of the book which the covers orange in honor of her president , because i saw coming so i thought it would be a nice gesture. Ironically i asked the publisher if we could maybe change the subtitle to a north american story in case i flee to canada. But they were not am unable. The section im going to read is one that is personally terrifying to me. When you write something obviously is a writer there things that you find more affecting and then readers find other parts more affecting and theres this constant search for the happy, middle ground. This book is very personal, took a lot out of me to write. I come from a conservative family, religiously speaking. I talk about a lot of things that i dont think my family would have been excited for me to talk about. So, i have this weeklong panic attack over whether not i should invite my family members to my readings, because it would be rude not to, but that if i read the book out loud, i would know if you part of the family. It was a very exciting balance. What i will read is a section from reasonably early in the book when i was 17 years old before i started nyu, i was in high school. I had come up with a plan to sneak out to prom. I had a girlfriend secretly. I lived in a farm town. About 95 kids of my high school. Everybody in the town expect my parents knew it was coming to prom. It was amazing. So, this is a section that opens with my parents beginning to figure out that i was not the muslim kid they thought i was. When i finally got to the kitchen, pit of my stomach it was to find my parents waiting an ambush. My father fired first. Why did you have a girl in your car yesterday . My eyes went wide in my mind went into overdrive in my face retreated into confusion. A girl . As if i did not know what one was. Perhaps if i force them to define the female species near embarrassment wouldve prevented them from continuing. On reflection, this would work perfectly. As it turns out, someone in the local Muslim Community had snitched on me. This is what i got for driving around in a toyota land cruiser. Of which there were only two in my entire town. One of which belonged to my family and the other belong to the mosque president whose family was the only other muslim family in town. The two land cruisers were the same color, beige with my family. Since the mosque president s wife and my mother headscarf you can imagine the neighbors confusion. They look the same to me, so to their cars. I decided to own a part way. She needed a ride home. And since offering a girl ride home was always a trespass, maybe that was a momentary panic in my eyes. I folded a waffle in half and shoved it into mime mouthwash it down with chocolate milk. It was nothing i say, but ive been sloppy. Id have to pursue my secret life with greater deception. Mcdonalds never callbacks are found another job. When that would be easier to hide softening the blow of a chain that sells fast food. I help students write a thesis papers from scratch or rewrite. Technically therefore i did not graduate high school once, but several times. I profited in order to pay for life which i tried desperately to escape. I walked past carla every morning because the science wing was close to the senior parking lot. My friends tease me for not making out with her. I wondered why held back. I was scared. There is an absence of opportunity to. Her friend presented one. She announced a pool party at the end of may. I knew i had to attend. I would make my move there. Samanthas house had to be beside the mosque president s. Which meant they might see my car which is also their car. Huge risk before two weeks before prom. I asked my friend jacob to be my right. Jacob was a bright kid who sometime in the course of senior year developed a habit of falling asleep during everything. He was bright a knife to coast on his wits for a while, but the warning signs were there. Judging by his snoozing, he deemed most of his life too important to be present for. You must always were oversize handknit sweaters. He look like his mother had gotten him lost inside of cell. In case you forgot, he was usually asleep, at least not when driving. His mom took a liking to me. She wasnt particularly religious but asked me to find the jacob a nice jewish girl. As if an adolescent muslim i had some special access to jewish women that she lacked. On the way to the party, naturally his nose started bleeding. So badly that we drove right past sams house and almost to massachusetts in the belief that the closer we get to canada the father we further we were from her. No luck. Jacob practically ran the car into the ground. Took me a moment to realize he was repurpose he leaves as napkins. Then we met the homeowner read real napkins which she shared after we explained why semi sort washing her face with oak leaves while laughing and falling over. I ended up that night exactly where he wanted to be. On samanthas pool deck with carla, her beautiful legs pushing online, mind need displacement. My children learn how to walk, its a deep instinct. Inside them. In the right time and place it comes to the surface. I reached inside myself and shoved it to the floor. I had never felt so overcome. Heres the thing, i could sense with some rater i did not know ahead, that she wanted the same. The energy hung in the air. Were opposite ends of the magnet. I just reach over, put my arms around her and watch them on Station Wagon pull up. With equal and immediate force we jumped away from each other. I want carla to her card ejected as she made her way to the back seat she offered me her hand an apology. It was so much and that chris and i fear i spent my entire life trying only to return to that squeeze. Somewhere i could be held with someone instead of just myself. I let my parents to believe that on the friday night, the first week of june, convenient, i sleep over at a friends house, this friends mom conspired with me as did everyone else, to leave school early in the day a proud one had to have parental permission. Most parents gave theirs, mind you dont need task. So the principal went to my departing a little earlier than the conclusion of the day. Across state lines to my friends home, and i returned in time for the evenings event. The neighbors were on vacation so i parked my land cruiser not in the backyard but under their deck, having been caught once before i would not make the same mistake twice. A jacobs house i relax. I was going to get away with this. We went into the backyard and pose for the camera. Back then he had to wait for pitchers to develop, you got to live in the moment instead of watching yourself livid a few seconds later. The six of us with her dates were dressed to the nines. The smiles we were for the camera belied what was around the corner. For reasons that are obvious, i have no other pictures of me with carla. A prime, practically every student went out of his way to congratulate me, amazed i made it. More encourage that i wanted to attend in the first place. I wanted theirs, maybe for that one day i would not need it. Maybe soon. I got rejection and omission letters. Between boston and nyu, pick the latter. All good things must come to them. I never see many my classmates again, it would be like it never happened. Carl and i slow danced to Sarah Mclaughlin son which i cannot listen to now without working out at goosebumps. I ask myself who 88 is, why she needs to know why we havent done anything wrong, and why i was receiving a. Satan asked adam, shelley lead you to a tree into a kingdom that never dies . The apple taste better than it digests. Adam is tempted by the desire to live forever, yet he fails and he falls. But only in falling does he become what he was meant to be. Maybe we missed the point of the story all along. You can do the wrong thing for the right reason, adamantly eight for ate from the tree, but they repented and stuck together. I was a 17yearold who wanted to belong. To believe that there is a world he could be inside an apartment. That he didnt need to analyze from without, prejudge, excommunicate or be excommunicated from. If only for a night, let the star circle me. The metal necklaces, the occasional bracelets, the wallet hooked on a chain to a belt loop, these were are the tribal markers of snowboarder. And to validate me by announcing it was other than me, sticking up to fit in. Those amounts can tell you how badly i wanted this cheerleader. We cannot what others want because they wanted still want for themselves. Sometimes are unable to point to where our desires and in others begin. After prom we mightve stop somewhere but i can remember. Carl wanted nothing to do with me. The last thing she did was chide me. You cant drink, you have to drive. The next afternoon, alone in an empty bedroom someone elses house, carla chose aol instant messenger to shock an army. We should break out. Sure i said. And not expected this within, even as i made plans to go away from college. You can hold two contradictory hopes in your head and still be devastated when one gives away. Its wanting to have your cake and eat it too. What else would you do with cake . I joke with my parents to new york the night after prom to see my family. I set broken and on speaking. My mom would pass away less than a deck o decade later from canc. My father still with us another decade after that. I cannot admit to them then or ever, that i feel because i was, in the end, phil. Carl and i never moved beyond that first kiss. While i tremble to meet her lips, she told me casualty to what intimacies she would and would not be okay with. I nodded determinedly as if this was a subject i had mastered. Yet i believe dating was no different than marriage. Once we are together we would remain together. Terminology was technicality. I was ruined like i cannot believe. Its one thing not to go to prom and another to be dumped the day after he pulled off the greatest deception in your brief life history. If every person has one great test, mine was and may still be, parting. I learned i could deal with death. I cannot accept that god would let lives get entangled only to be yanked apart. Can you live forever and be a part forever . That is death. A real and without resurrection. A place where islam cannot go does not hel help. Had carla not broken up with me, could i have broken it off with her . The deeper sorrow carves into you, the more joy it contains. From which i learned this lesson. The further you let a person into your soul, the longer it takes her to leave. I could not have guessed how much it wouldve hurt to give anyone anything with my heart but i had stupidly given mine. The following spring i stop by carlas hearts to pick up bradley, good friend of mine. He lives on the other side of town. Jeremy who lives on the other side of town was standing beside me. None of this memory makes any sense, but thats because all i was focused on and all i could see years later was carla at the top of the stairs putting dishes away. She may have waived. A year later we ended up across from each other in a diner in connecticut and shared where life had taken us. Jeremy left as we walked back to my car. That he said was the longest conversation you ever had with her. Maybe i should ask her out. I never spoke to her or even saw her again. Maybe we do not live one life, but many. Some overlap, some are errors apart, some never intercept. Maybe i keep telling myself because of a cut in. Or else i dont need to know what it means in this universe. My religion says a man should not be alone with a woman but they should say a man should not feel like he has to be alone with the woman to feel like his life is worth living. What i miss most of all in the months after we broke up with her hands. From the first time she offered hers in a rollerskating rink to the last one with the left the dance floor. And may be that you hate it and its good for you. Be on my desire for her was an awesome loneliness. A feeling of living in a nothing place only briefly and erupted. Life was no life at all. From time to time this emptiness made the world stark and beautiful. Most of all it hunted and pursued me. Something always comes from nothing. With every difficulty, he says there is relief. It could be this is me or all of us. We stumble onto god in the blanks, the places we live in but dont ever belong to. If only to be taught mercy, we dont belong here. Thank you. [applause] that is a chapter from the book and yes, got dumped the day after prom. Im not bitter at all. Slightly, but not really. Thank you. If i may start the q a part of the evening. I want to refer to an article that was published a couple of days ago the atlantic by emma green. The article is titled, trying to be in a political muslim in america. Yearbook, how to be a muslim tries out a new genre writing about islam. Its not about terrorism or war. How do you feel about that title . And tell us a little bit what brought you to write a very different kind of book . In the spirit of being political to answer a question about being a political, im can answer different question because thats what politicians do. I look to donald trump and he just starts tweeting. I cant do it he does. So, the book is titled how to be a muslim. The first review i got was pretty positive. By the end the reviewers like, he never answers the question about how to be a muslim. And i said i think you missed the point. Even better, there is a book published in militia about how to be muslim which is a guidebook. Theres could be confuse people at the about wiser book a series of pictures of how to pray. I miss someone in malaysia who thinks or given a book on prayer and there can be reading about taking a girl to prom. Theres could be some exciting overlap, i hope. When i came to nyu and 98, spent a while this book service not here. I had a tenuous connection to my muslim identity. I grew up in a very small, christian temporary was a lovely time, just very small. I wanted to come to a big city so i came to new york. You have to whittle new york down to size because its huge and overwhelming. I debated between jordan this ovation club or the muslim club. The Salesian Club i went to the first event and it was a dance party and i cant dance. So im not kind to spend four years not dancing because of stupid. Thats why i joined the islamic club. Its terrible left choices. I come from very honest admissions of moral failures. When answering a question, promise. I met these different people and i might not be a particularly religious person but i can help build a religious community. In a few kids were like we can make a this a massive culture because its not can it be that you have to be a certain type a muslim to come in. Were just saying if you identify as muslim you can come through the door. This is like south asian eugenics. We really to not let people, we dont let them reproduce until the have certain kinds of vehicles in their grudges. Its amazing. No one will marry you unless you can afford a mercedes and bmw. If you think about it were like fascists. But slightly less intimidating. Im still answering your question, i promise. I told myself, its fine. We can do this and i will go to law school and do my parents want me to do. Who cares if i build a student club, i liked it. Is elected president for the Islamic Center my senior year. I celebrated by asking a girl out. So sad, i wrote her a poem and decided to read it to her in a starbucks. This is my greatest nyu memory. It was the starbucks on broadw broadway. Im sure you passed it many times. Occasionally pass and start crying. Not because im sad, but embarrassed. I see you friday sermons, i asked this girl out. Halfway through reciting the poem her boyfriend walks in and sits down. I didnt know she had a boyfriend. I had asked a friend to do research and they completely failed. His like hey you gave the servant sermon, and im like im asking a girlfriend on a date. So that went over well. Is elected president of the msa. My third day as president was 9 11. We were the largest Muslim Community in proximity to ground zero. The 21yearold kid incredibly shy, awkward, did not really know how to handle himself in the settings. It became what i call a professional muslim. One reason for the book is this lifestyle of constantly commenting and having tied defend your identity and everything about muslim has to do with violence. I wanted to write something that challenge that. I didnt want to write a book about politics or National Security. Even though its in the background because it affects me in differen