By Andy Furman
NKyTribune Reporter
A leader? Maybe.
A pioneer? Perhaps.
Asma T. Uddin (Pronounced You-deen) says in some ways she might be considered a pioneer.
“My late father was a civil engineer,” she told the Northern Kentucky Tribune. “He designed mosques. Several years after his passing, the dome of those mosques was rattled with bullet holes.”
Perhaps that put Uddin on the road to becoming a religious liberty lawyer and scholar working for the protection of religious expression for people of all faiths in the United States and abroad.
She takes her message – and passion – to Thomas More University, Thursday evening February 16 at 7 p.m. in Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapel.
Her appearance will be open to the public and free of charge.
So how did this Muslim educator – she teaches at the Catholic University of America – connect with Thomas More University?
“We have an Interfaith Committee here at Thomas More,” said Dr. Ray Hebert, a history professor at the school. “And that committee is pretty well diversed. We have two Mormons, a Muslim, several Protestants and a Jewish member. They guide me in selecting our guest speakers.”
Hebert says Thomas More has two simple goals – “Interfaith – looking at the future of Religious Liberty and promoting a civil dialogue.”
They found a winner in Uddin.
“I’ve always been interested in religion – good or bad,” she said, “I’m fascinated with it.”
Uddin says she was a Religious Studies major as an undergraduate, “Part spiritual, part personal.”
She’s worked on religious liberty cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate courts, and federal trial courts. She has defended religious claimants as diverse as Evangelicals, Sikhs, Muslims, Native Americans, Jews, Catholics and members of the Nation of Islam.
“We are all fellow humans,” she said, “One should see a person in front of you as a person, and a natural human being, and not as a political problem.”
Her legal, academic and policy work focus on freedoms of expression such as religious garb, land use, access to religious materials in prison, rights of parochial schools and religious arbitration.
In addition to her legal work, Uddin writes and speaks on Muslims and gender.
“I’ll do a speaking engagement about every other month,” she said.
As the founding editor-in-chief of altmuslimah.com, she has managed the web magazine and organized vigorous debates and conferences on the multifaceted issues of gender, politics and religion. Uddin has advised numerous media projects on American Muslims, including as Executive Producer for the Emmy and Peabody nominated docu-series, The Secret Life of Muslims.
After graduating from The University of Chicago Law School, Uddin served as Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and as Director of Strategy for the Center for Islam and Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. She is an Inclusive America Project Fellow at the Aspen Institute, an expert advisor on religious liberty for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Senior Scholar at the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Center, a Visiting Scholar at Brigham Young University Law School, and a non-residential fellow at UCLA and Georgetown University. She is also a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct law professor at George Mason University Law School.
Uddin says she’s grown as a person.
“I totally understand what’s happening in society,” she said, “And hoping to not create hostilities. I’d like to think of this as a new way of thinking in context of religion.”
In her book, The Politics of Vulnerability, “American Christians, in their own struggle to protect religious freedoms in America, have labeled American Muslims as enemies when they could be strong allies. If their rights aren’t protected, the rights of Christians will ultimately be threatened as well,” writes Richard Stearns, President Emeritus of World Vision U.S.
Uddin makes a strong case in her book for why Christians and Muslims should work together to protect the crucial freedom that both faiths cherish.
“I have no problems or hostilities working at The Catholic University of America, being Muslim,” Uddin said. “We have quite the diverse faculty.”
It’s all about religious liberties – and accommodation; sometimes by law.
Asma Uddin will present “The Impact of Polarization on the Future of Religious Liberty” on Thursday, February 16 at 7 p.m. at Thomas More University’s Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.