The only other excuse is if youre a homicide or narcotics detective. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. Im one of the coowners of politics and prose, my husband is right there. We hope that by the end this event you will not be stuck here in a snowstorm. We are pretty confident you will get out okay but we are delighted to have all of you here. Before we get started, i think, many of you have been to events here. Just a few housekeeping reminders, if you have a noisemaking device and can silence it now, we would be grateful for that. The way this will work is our guest will be in conversation before a bit and then theyll be happy to take questions from the audience. We do have microphone set up right here. We really would love it if you make it to the mic so we can record the questions and that would be very, very helpful. At the end of the event there will be a signing at this table and kind enough and will expedite the signing and expedite you being able to get through and out of here and will also make our staff very happy. At the end of a long day so we appreciate that. This is the first week of events for 2017, we have an incredible calendar coming up, we really urge you to look at our website and also if you would like a hard copy of our january calendar its up at the information desk and also in the front of the store. Lots of really good stuff coming up and one of the things we are most excited about is that we are launching, i think, some of you may know if you read our news letter and emails, we are launching a series of teachings this month that we expect to be ongoing through the winter ranging across a variety of subjects really to try to educate and inform people about some of the challenges our country is facing, some of the issues that are going to be on the forefront in the next potentially years and hopefully also if you have an interest in a particular issue or a cause to give you some ideas and guidance as to what you can do as an individual or as part of a group to help make progress on those particular issues. This sunday is our kick off at 2 30, 2 30, i think, its going to to be on Civil Liberties and we have incredible panel coming. David called the executive director. Mike walledman who was the speech writer for bill clinton is now head of center in law school and offered many books about Voting Rights an constitution and todd cox from the naacp. We are excited about having those guys, phenomenal experts and hopefully seeing many of you and more on sunday afternoon. We will also be doing on womens rights at january 20th at 4 00 p. M. , you can look at the website for more details on that and we will have more upcoming things. Lastly, we do have a display of books recommended for those teachings, if youre interested its up at the front of the store. Im done, with that part, now for what youre actually here for. I cant say what an honor and delight today host embassador omar tonight here at politics and prose. I think some of you know, hes the united emirates embassador to russia and assumed the position in the ripe old age of 37. But i was thinking about this today going through certain learning more about him. To think of him solely as a diplomat and even one in such important post is to understate his wideranging interests and good works in addition to representing this country overseas hes also now an author, that much, i think, you already know because hes going to be speaking tonight about his new book, letters to a young muslim and i will get back to his books in a second, first a brief mention of some of the other experiences and projects. Embassador earned advanced degree in math at the university of london and went onto found several legal and financial counties and opened art gallery and project focusing on the promotion of arab literature. He was the driving force that led to to the creation of Campus University in abu dhabi. He spent five years in nepal and switzerland as a climber of very tall peaks, all of this experiences including fluency in languages and most Important Role as father are at work in letters to a young muslim. Book is a election written to his own children, efforts to show them and i quote how to be faithful with islam and deepest values and as well chart their way in complex world. You note that the book is written for your children and also with young muslims, young men and young women in mind and i might suggest if you dont mind that this book also ought to be required reading for nonmuslims too. Any one who reads it will gain tremendously from your view that people from all backgrounds have again to borrow your words, a duty to think in question and engage constructively with the world, those are wise words from wise man. I think some of you know marcus from his various roles here in dc and he was executive editor and now runs a small Investment Company on media technology, so marcus, thank you so much. We are delighted to have you both and you have the floor, thanks for coming. Thank you. [applause] and thank you all for being here tonight on our cold washington night. I dont know if you know this, normally in washington if you get dusting of snow they shut the schools and shut the government, we avoided disaster. Its a great honor to be here with omar for the reasons said, hes a deeply thoughtful man who is courageous in his thinking and by that i mean we live in a time for which you all know politics are deeply polarized, people get arrested, jailed and worse for thinking thought that is dont converge with the mainstream and omar in this stands out for willingness to take nuance and positions of issues in our time. One of the things that lisa didnt mention which, i think, is highly relevant in understanding omars world view is that he was born very much into the early days of the world that we are living in today and born in 1971 which was the year that his country the United Arab Emirates was founded and he has grown up as the region modernized in that region. His father who was the foreign minister of the uae was assassinated in 1977 when he was 6 and i think that experience as much as anything if they read this book clearly informs his awareness of the intolerance and violence of islamic radicalism and his personal exploration following his fathers death as arab, muslim and father to two young sons shape it is narrative in this book. What i thought i would do is maybe just start off by talking about how you came to write this book, what motivated you and what youre trying to establish with it because we were just talking before you came out here about how this is not a theological treatise, much more than that. For the larger world, lisa was talking, those who are not muslim, its important to bringing understanding to an area of the world and to religion thats become so central to our political experience. Thank you very much. Its a great honor to be here. I told the owners before speak into the mic. I shall. [laughter] thank you very much. You didnt hear any of that. I will start again. This is my favorite bookstore in dc and, i think, its one of the last standing bookstores in the world . Yeah. [laughter] a great honor to be here tonight. There were a couple of things that need to be clarified. Im not putting forward a theological position and i was asked by some key figures in the middle east whether i had checked with religious scholars on the appropriateness of what im saying and i respond to it by saying im actually writing in spite of them and to take a position visavis the religious scholar and im not asking for religious scholars to tell me im on the right track or not. Im not talking directly about dock dock doctrine or prescriptions. Im advising my two sons to think about taking a particular position of the wall before they begin to think about the particularly religion they belong to. Thats a position that i havent really heard being discussed but the idea came out of the realization that they seemed to have solved the problems and they know to make the case, they will pick sunni than islam. What they tried to do is take a step back and say, being a muslim in todays world where we have so much information about competing, we are all in the same position, why would i stand up and say im a su in, ni as opposed to being a shiite. I was born into a sunni family and brought up as a su in, ni sunni family. Peaceful spiritual side of islam all the way to violent, aggressive isis which i also believe is a certain kind of expression of islam. Inappropriate one and illegitimate one but nevertheless it comes from the source documents. The only way to come up with an understanding to be a muslim today is to come back to something fundamental and say our humanity is what informs our reading and if you are finding for some strange reason that all of a sudden the quarante leads you to slave, rob, kill, then theres something wrong with you. Its too much of a coincidence that you as a young male thug have found a religion that actually supports your positions and instinct and passions. Thats what im trying to say, before you come to the text you need ive run out of let me take you to the title of the book which is youre writing it as a letter, as a series of letters and this is so your sons. Why did you take that approach and youre clearly trying to help them to understand a lot more than, you know, these decisions between other strains of islam. Youre taking on sort of the whole underpinnings of the religion and say you must not be rigid about it. What are you trying to accomplish . To be honest, i was never really interested in taking the personal approach and if you read the book you will see that its actually very personal. I had written what i tried to i tried to write a more of a manifesto kind of sort of a guidelines for young people to think about and more understanding of these questions and my publisher said it was all great but very few people would read it and so i will tell you honestly, they suggested that i think in terms of a series of lessons, and so i rewrote the book entirely between march or may, march, so over the course of two months, i used the tool of addressing my oldest son and it was remarkable that it actually released tremendous amount of energy and i was able to write continuously and actually a lot of the many lessons were not included in the final version, so thats where that came from. My son claims it was my idea but now that i have written it, it feels like im doing public therapy sessions for myself working through the issues of my childhood. Before but youre also doing in a sense public therapy for your religion and i heard an idea e enunciated that islam is in need of a reformation, a martin luther. I dont think its fair to be honest. Kind of top down instruction given that we reformed it. To ask for reform of islam is suggest that i have some kind of deep though theological understanding, traditionally have held respect in our islamic muslim society. Actually learn about the people that they are guiding and perhaps understand that the flock has changed from the tenth century when most of us was illiterate and today in the 21st century when every one of us has information and knowledge, i think also that the clerics they have a specialized area of expertise. What im asking them to do is think more broadly about the moral questions that each of us faces in multicultural societies. Its not longer the society of seventh century arabia. Its very dangerous , i think, to continue with believer or nonbeliever or friend or foe inside or outsider specially when youre bumping into all kinds of people all day long. So i would like for this to be the start. If this was the start of a set of dialogues between clerics who really have others of knowledge and youth who are the ones who are really asking the questions and if there to be not a meeting of minds but at least an expression of interest in each other to find out, you know, what each can contribute to the moral questions of the middle east in particular but to the muslim world in general. What does it take to get that dialogue going . Obviously in the u. S. Is concern about islam and extremism and i think the u. S. And people in america would generally share the view that it would be great if islam was more focused on a modern Multicultural Society and not focus on seventh or eighth century. What does it take to get that dialogue going, what does it take to get islam to modernize in the way that you write about in this book. One of the things that i think is important is the position of muslims in america. Muslims in america the protections of the law. They have an expectation that they can speak freely. Many different from many muslim countries where theres the idea that we need to put in laws, they are very interesting because they seem to be structured to end all debate and you have to make sure that you get on the right side of the law and i think the muslims of america should really take advantage of the situation here and the academic freedom, intellectual freedom to really begin to take a lead on the direction of global islam and to contribute to the debate taking place in the middle east and ara b language. Im not saying that these are ideas that are reforming or modernizing, they are really providing clarity. So, for example, i talk about the role of the muslim individual. I got criticism by somebody online where they said that the individual a western concept and therefore is not legitimate and shouldnt be brought into the dialogue about islam. I noted that myself that the person has used facebook which is a western tool, maybe thats not appropriate term, its [laughter] its a product of western society. He was writing in english and writing as an individual and we thought these are basic conceptses that we need to work out and to think about. I also think that its interesting that we have the focus on the group and the idea of the individual threatening to the group. I actually think that they complement each other and right now the focus is on the group which formed almost an empty body built of many people with little personality. I want to raise the level of quality of group by beefing up the individual in the muslim world. Relate today that, there are two interesting many interesting elements in your book. A couple of things i want you to talk about. Wasnt is your view and understanding of women and islam. You write how you have an older sister, i guess, who you describe her in very impressive terms and the way you write about women and the role you think they should play in islam is not i would say the conventional understanding of the american audience of what women and islam might expect. Can you talk a bit about how women should be treated in islam. Should be treated . Thats [laughter] you know what i mean. Yeah, i know what you mean. [laughter] apologizes. Well, we have a whole bunch of communities in the middle east in particular and i worry sometimes that in the spread of islam we are actually exploiting some of the local cultures and practices of the of the middle east and im not sure thats a great idea nor do i think its particularly its particularly appropriate. I can speak from the perspective of morality where women are given all kinds of freedom, by which i mean they are given equal freedoms to males and actually in practice what that means that women have the chance to really prove themselves and do in fact, they do a much better job in the males in our society. I think we are now more worried where our men are doing and where they are doing with their time, they seem to have a certain kind of sort set of expectation that is are completely unreasonable. In that sense certain societies within the middle east are pushing forward on kind of womens rights and womens empowerment really. In the emirates we have a whole bunch of cabinet ministers who are women and they are they are doing an amazing job, much more interesting than the male members if i can say. My sister, she essentially brought me up and she has that kind of control over me that only an older sister can have. You will hear in clerics that women are weaker and unable to make decisions, i enjoy mountain climbing and my mountain climbing guide is a swedish woman 53. I have fallen from my position and hung in the air knowing that shes actually controlling the rope and making sure that i dont fall to my death. I will pull her with me, of course. Thats important. I think we need to think in terms of something that ive also spoken about. We have the idea that moral perfection took place in the seventh century. And those are traditions to say that the first three generations of muslims were the perfect form of muslim in through all time. I want to introduce the idea, at least a discussion about what it means to be more ally perfect or morally excellent and i have an understanding of how we can do that if we are using concept of the seventh century, are we not allowed to develop the concepts . Thats the way i put to the clerics. It makes me wonder whether we are on the right track and i had a very interesting i was very interested by the talk around the religious where he was asked about black lives matter and he was disparaging and his analysis of black lives matter, boiled down to my understanding about the way in which African Americans raised their families and their commitment to responsibilities and commitment to family life and their inability to do that. He made it a moral, personal issue. The criticism was directed at him because he wasnt taking into account structural matters and racism and injustice and i thought to myself this is a great opportunity. He didnt say those are unacceptable categories, he said, im sorry, i didnt think of those things. So these are concepts that have come outside of the kind of the concept that is have come out of islam. I thought, this is a fantastic opportunity to begin to look at our own reactions and to realize that actually we recognize structural injustice even though it was never part of islamic kind of theology. I have no idea if i answered your question, but there was an excellent answer in there. [laughter] the other thing i will ask another question and i will open up because im sure there are many questions from the room from the book, you talk about silence in the book and how, if i understood it correctly, religion imposes a kind of silence of people, acceptance imposes a kind of silence and nonthinkingness from people and you talk about your own your own youth and there was a period in your own youth when you were weighing what direction to go and you founded the sway of more dogmatic religion. How that plays out and how you think that gets ended. I picked up on the silence issue. At around 15i decided that i didnt really have any opinions anymore because it was so difficult to reconcile, you know, having a russian mother, but having strict rigid dogmatic views of the world through islam at the time. At the time i was 14, 15. And so i decided to leave and i took a timeout of about 20 years. [laughter] three of those years were completely silent. I had absolutely not to say, i did my work and i did my exams and up until the age of 19i had no opinions. Now i think i have solved that problem. [laughter] i think the i thought about silence a great deal particularly in the context of freedom of speech and i wondered why the middle east is so hesitant to welcome speech. Part of it is because we seem to be stuck in a kind of a cycle where we go to take the same arguments and we think that we are making progress and weve contributed to the analysis of the situation where in fact, what we have done is come up with a Conspiracy Theory which removes any power that we might have and so, you know, its kind of a deadend. The thought of the problem of silence is that when you are silent, i feel you begin to lose the ability to to think clearly. Thats why i enjoy debate. I enjoy q a and thinking on my feet because it provokes me into being a creative and commit to go a dialogue. If youre silent, there is no dialogue, there is no challenge, there is no creative thinking whatsoever. And so thats why im so fearful of many people in the middle east. You are not one thing to think destructively but thinking constructively in our part of the world. So let me open the floor to questions, this is a microphone here which would be helpful since there is tvs, we will start taking questions from the floor. Thank you. If you can identify yourself. My name is ron thompson, i was lucky to catch you in your interview and the daily show also with the trevor noah. You asked the question, i think, it was on page 22 whether its more ethical to have a strict islamic system or to have a psychologicalically committing suicide, taking all kinds of medications and it occurred to me the profit told us it is not meant to be difficult and we have made it difficult and did making it difficult we are obsessive about these that have nothing to do with the bulk and core of the religion. I just wondered whether maybe we would be able to find, if our clerics would think in terms of psychology it is one thing to pray 5 times a day and another to pray all night. There might even be a religious argument to maintain limits on your religiosity. There are traditions that support that view. We need to recognize there is human psychology, we shouldnt push each other to the limits. I didnt expand on that because i am beginning to have a whole set of discussions about this with clerics and people in the field of psychology. It is an angle that is missing. My name is Jessica Wasserman and i have worked as a trade advisor to the embassy. I have a lot of friends in the uae, but i always tried to talk about politics and religion more openly and as much as i feel conflict i have never been able to do that so some of your comments are fascinating but i just assumed it was more political, like fear of speaking out on these issues. I wonder it is a religious personality more so or is it one of the two . There are reasons to fear, to speak out. There are consequences to the positions. I spoke on npr with gerri willis and i came to the us, i dont have an idea on the political leanings of the people i speak to and i speak what i think but i get pushed back, people are expressing surprise i havent taken a position in accordance to cohere. For me that has been interesting. I also, speaking out is not a straightforward matter. I am continually thinking about what i am saying and saying to myself i take responsibility. It is important to me as a human being to have a position, to say it with dignity and stand by it. I do want to think about them if they want. One of my close relatives decided these ideas are behind the pale, so be it. And providing as much clarity as i can to them. There is an islamic perspective that says the world is static. If you are in the right religious frame of mind you need worry about nothing. The world is incredibly dynamic and we continually engage with the world so it is a daily weekly monthly task. Not that i say my pray my five prayers today and that is it. My name is dan. I would like your observation on a comment, some observations i read by a french philosopher whose name i have forgotten, the right way to look at what is happening with isis is to analogize it to the protestant reformation in europe in the 16th century, basically reaction of people who see religion being used to benefit some people and to not permit exploration, thought, such as in the renaissance where people began thinking i do this and maybe the sun moves or maybe the earth moves and perhaps, his theory was, the same forces in the islamic world and it is foolish to think about using military means to deal with that. When you built up i thought you were leaving. Thank you. Isis, i think, very briefly, is a set of ideas and can be destroyed, we can try to discredit those ideas, not sure we are making a serious push. So i think isis is a state of mind and a particularly easy one to absorb and follow. It is very simple, and it makes things black and white. I dont know enough about the 15th or 16th century religious upheavals but i do think it is interesting that isis comes along as an upstart. They are challenging the traditional religious authorities, in saudi arabia or egypt and saying we have the right to talk about these issues and legislate and take things forward and i attend conferences where a great deal of clerics who are promoting the idea of peace is all fantastic but what i noticed is there criticisms of isis are about who has the right to clerical authority. I thought this is nonscholars of islam, why we need to get in touch with the clerics to say you are fighting power with a terrorist organization but not actually interested in us as ethical agents but want to take back that authority and tell us what to do. You arent any different from what these people have done and that is why there has to be a set of clerics who are open to have dialogue, and 21stcentury people with a broad occasion with ethical agents. Can i follow it up by jumping into geopolitics . You have a unique perspective, you have been in russia for eight years, you know a lot about how russia in the middle east, you spend time here and in the west. After may be syria is not over but the crisis in syria and with isis seemingly in retreat in iraq and syria, what do you see as the next stage of the ideological struggle, where the west is involved. It is difficult so i will go off on attentions. The west is deeply involved in the arab and muslim world, the question of islamohphobia, we must explore voice our concerns. They are very legitimate and we need to find some focus. The context of fighting islamohphobia, other minority groups in the arab and muslim world and think about how we ourselves deal with mine already. And we focus on the islamohphobia and internal, and then linked, and the excuse for the very serious Critical Issues facing globally. I am a brand builder doing marketing, in 2011, and rebranding islam. Mosque being built across the street and i am jewish. I have a lot of muslim friends and i really want to defend it, that is religious freedom. Muslims in america and generalization but my world speaking out against terrorism so i put together this talk and the wife of the e mom, one of someone who works with resident azlan had a moderator who was a polarizing discussion. I am not a theologian, the state of understanding, in america bridge the gap between what other americans think which is fanatics. There are a lot of discussions and the clerics in my view open the discussions and having conversations against terrorism and changing the way american view islam but my question, there is not a great stride. I heard reza azlan has a new Television Show coming up like modern family, to normalize homosexuality, normalizing islam and having that in pop culture and that might build the only way. I dont know. I tell you, when september doesnt look nice i was horrified. I have been about radical islam from the age of 14 or 15, the early 80s and september 11th has to be a turning point, we need to be thinking about what has and allowed to be said to our children and neighbors and mosques. Traditionally in the areas of the mosques, a lot of angry preaching. A lot of politicized preaching and the reaction of the arab world would be to look into it, into these issues. We have to change the image of islam in the west. I have respect but the product, it is not clear where we stand on these, we spent a ton of money on glossy adverts and brochures and tv series. And we ourselves are wondering where are we going. And where i clerics taking them. I am jewish. And there is conservative reform. Every muslim, the reared religiosity is to the extreme and that is not true. It is an invitation. My fellow muslims. To take more responsibility. I know there are muslims who are cultural muslims, who identify with the faith. And that is what im talking about. You dont understand that isis is an evil organization. And through the incident. If you want to be on american muslim who wants to go to starbucks and the bookshop and go to work and not worry about the direction of islam globally, that is your choice. And in trumps america, muslims should be afraid. A lot of people may be afraid, over the last hundred years, different communities in the us but to take advantage of the laws that are part of the constitution, and work to establish a position for themselves in the community and that is what i would like to see. I am a husband and those people have nothing to do with it, it has everything to do with us. I am a resident of maryland. Eldon on what you were saying before, american muslims ability to engage in this internal dialogue, are there any plans to translate your book into arabic . Can you share i know a lot of human rights activists are lay muslims on social media and informal exchanges with people who are extremists under trying circumstances can you share any organizations that are trying to do that dialogue in a systematic way . There are organizations. They are feeding their way forward, there are organizations in the uk. Counter radicalization in london at kings college, doing more analysis of the mentality that is behind extremism. I have got an offer from an arab publisher, yesterday got the news a turkish publisher whats the book as well. I was very impressed, the taiwanese would like it and also to do it in complex chinese. I will try to figure out what that is all about. Friends in russia said they would like to see the russian. I have a german and spanish contract. These are early days as far as i am concerned which i would like to see the reaction. I want to stress this is not a prescriptive thing. This is asking people to engage with a set of questions. Maybe we will get some clarity and get some straightforward answers some people have offered me. My name is lou. The muslim experience in the west can be quite different from the muslim experience in muslim majority countries, the way muslim youth in the west approach events are issues that are problems are different. Even our clerics are very different. Sitting here listening to you, i have trouble relating to the things you were saying. As someone whos local imam is an advocate for gender inequality and joining hands with the Lgbt Community i was struggling with things you were saying so your book letters to a young muslim, exactly which muslim doesnt address, even within muslim majority countries and in indonesia, would be different from muslims in pakistan or somewhere else, who was this targeting really . Letters to my older son. My younger son will not find everything relevant to him. It is a set of questions. For example, the question is sexuality. It is impossible to open that question, impossible to open up to those ideas. If you came to the arab world and said gay rights they would be horrified and laugh at you. Even though Everybody Knows sexuality is very diverse in the arab world come in the heartland, i am not saying i address every single young muslim or every single piece of advice or invitation is relevant for every single muslim, i would be happy if each muslim who picks up the book finds three of the letters incredible. I am just inviting a discussion. The American Experience is different. They declare their independence to the Global Community and go your own path so a lot of people who are pushing a radical agenda you must fall in line. And muslims and americans got to fall in love with this you need to be aware how other muslims are looking at this. It is also a cautionary book. I am asking for a wall of potential manipulative intentions of others in the name of religion. I hope that was okay. Speaking of manipulative intentions, i am in educator in museums with a background in arabic studies and i also taught math, science and religion in Catholic School for two years and in that time did a lot of thinking about what and how i was being asked to teach. You say before you come to the text, you should discover your position on life. I havent read your book yet so my apologies if you addressed that but at what point and in what ways do you suggest we teach children about religion . A difficult one. I dont know how to go forward and there is a growing trend in the agencies that make sense. We mix education with indoctrination so we create model rhythms that are this high. That is unfair and limits their actions and limits the potential of islam, locks a child into a particular worldview, doesnt give the freedom to think more broadly. You have me stumped and i have to think about that and my apologies. I am a clinical psychologist so my question what is your diagnosis . How much time do we have . I was raised a muslim. I experienced islam, the nation of islam and joined the mainstream expression of islam, sunni islam, that was my worldview growing up as we were raised in a way that appreciated multiculturalism and religious plurality and value. My question is two prong is my observation as a psychologist is often times oftentimes our clerics and religious leaders do a poor job counseling and so the question is how do we go about sort of changing that from the inside out . And as a followon, any advice on folks like me that our Community Members as far as changing that and going about kind of holding them accountable or encouraging people who are having Mental Health issues to go about seeking to address those . What i think about is the way clerics traditionally view their own function but they are the ones who possess knowledge, religious knowledge is the only really relevant knowledge and if you are not a scholar of islam in the way you are you dont have a right to engage in the discussion but if you have a suggestion, interesting but keep it to yourself. What i am saying is we need to expand the notion of the scholar of islam and the people who have the authority to speak about these issues. Historians, psychologists, economists, a greater understanding and to say to the clerics you are still the one who understands the intricacies of islam but to make those decisions today and to help muslims move forward, a much greater number of people need to come together and upholding physicians and recommendations on the clerical and religious classes so what i am saying is knowledge, our knowledge of ourselves has developed so much in the last thousand years, and seems to be stuck with a view of how knowledge works in muslim countries. Thank you very much. One last question and thank you very much. My question relates to the gentleman on the psychology part. In the preface part, that is how i got it. That is fine. Take your time. There is a part where you mentioned my friends and i wonder about a suicide attacker, committing suicide in general was a great sin against allah if done for reasons like sadness or unhappiness but the greatest sacrifice if done to kill enemies. Of course i agree with that statement and that question but i was intrigued by the choice of words of committing suicide was a great sin if somebody committed suicide as a result of sadness or unhappiness. Would you like me to think, if it is a conscious effort on your part, when you talk about depression related suicide and depression is a mental illness, the narrative i hear from some is if you practice islam the right way you would never be depressed or you must not be practicing it right because it would not have happened to you. I wondered if the choice of words, suicide is a result of sadness or unhappiness, the word depression coming in when you were writing it or coincidence . I was thinking about depression, a set of issues that led to people in the middle east committing suicide and there are all kinds of reasons to commit suicide. I find it objectionable, we are told you cant do it because life is a gift from god but if you are doing something for the Global Islamic Movement it is okay. It is incoherent and nonsensical. Also i say in the book the idea of sacrificing your life for god is a great sacrifice and an important sacrifice but you cant make any sacrifices after that. If you are interested in making sacrifices for your religion then stick around. Stick around as long as possible and make the world a better place. That is what i would like to see our clerics say. Something else i want to say that disappeared from my mind. This has been tremendous and on that note, stick around and take more sacrifices. To endorse the idea. It has been a remarkable conversation and i commend the book to all of you. Havent had a chance to read it. It is eloquent, thoughtful, and as you can tell the author is very concerned about issues central to our times. I hope you have a chance to read it and thank him for his participation. Thank you. And of course because you all do want to read it now we have Copies Available at the front end. Omar saif ghobash will be happy to sign them. Thanks for coming out. [inaudible conversations] this is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here is our primetime lineup. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Special science conversation and humanities seminar. I also welcome you this morning heartily from my cohost, brian boone and charles zimmerman. My name is vanessa summers, coordinator of the humanities, special Research Division set up to stimulate Critical Thinking at the intersection of science and the humanities and what better subject to bring science and humanity together. To