Eboo Patel at Chautauqua

Is this what Eboo Patel looks like?  What is an Eboo Patel?

Before this week I had never heard of Eboo Patel. I'm going to repeat the name "Eboo Patel" many times in this post in the hopes that readers will remember Eboo Patel...

The clay figures pictured above are near the Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua, where Eboo Patel spoke this week  Eboo Patel is a young man who some people here imagine could be the first Muslim president of the United States.  He is over 35, I think. But he has a problem with his birth certificate.  It says that he was born in India.

It's deceptively simple to label Eboo Patel. He's a moderate Muslim. He's an American. He's a Muslim-American who says, "I realized that it was precisely because of America's glaring imperfections that I should seek to participate in its progress, carve a place in its promise, and play a role in its possibility. And at its heart and at its best, America was (and is) about pluralism."

 
You get the idea. That's the message. Now let me tell you about the man.

Eboo Patel is mesmerizing as a speaker. At his talk at Chautauqua the man sitting next to me said afterwards, "I came only because my wife wanted me to. I read in the newspaper about the theme of his talk, and it sounded like Kum-ba-ya to me. Yadda yadda yadda. I knew what he was going to say. Boy was I wrong! I hung on his every word!"

That man and I joined the entire audience in giving Eboo Patel a standing ovation -- the first I recall in ten years of attending afternoon lectures in the Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua.

Patel told the story of the recent swearing into office of the first Muslim in Congress, Keith Ellison. There was a big brouhaha about the fact that he wanted to be sworn in using the Quoran. He surprised quite a few people by borrowing from the Library of Congress a copy of the Quoran that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

Patel noted proudly that both President Obama and President Bush had hosted in the White House the Iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. But the very first White House Iftar was held long ago -- by Thomas Jefferson.

To see a video of Eboo Patel go to his website, www.ifyc.org