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As you mentioned, in the minds of some Americans, after 9-11, the religion of Islam was associated with maybe you could say evil in the world.

Maybe you can say terrorism. How can you respond to this association?

How does it make you feel, first of all, as a devout Muslim yourself? And how can you overcome

it personally? How can you overcome it as a community and as a religious leader?

It's interesting because 9-11 now, we're talking over 21 years ago.

You know, there's people born after 9-11.

It's crazy.

And you get to talk to them all the time.

Yeah.

So when I'm talking to young Muslims, I'm talking about post-9-11, post-9-11,

they're like, I was born in 2005.

What are you talking about post-9-11, they're like, I was born in 2005. What are you talking about post-9-11?

I'm like, well, you know, I remember being a teenager. I remember being in high school when this

happened, right? So a lot of us that experience 9-11 as high schoolers or as college students

and remember distinctly what it was like to be a Muslim pre-9-11 and post-9-11, we can relate to that experience and we could identify that juncture,

you know, very clearly and talk about it and speak to the change in the perceptions of Islam

that happened here in the United States and around the world. But a lot of young people are

born into that reality and are experiencing the aftermath of it. And, you know,

unfortunately, I have to deal with the bigotry that has not just, you know, taken greater shape

in media constructions of Islam, but also policies, right? A lot of the civil liberties of the

Muslim community were taken away from us. You read about the Patriot Act, you read about the

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