Ignorance about the role of religion in people’s lives, or a secular fundamentalist attitude which essentialises religion, seeing all religions as th… - Azza Karam

The world of religion is vast and difficult for us to quantify and categorize into neatly distinct entities.

...the gender dividing line was not necessarily that clear at all times. In fact it is far less clear in these groups what women should or should not do. In the secular world, that dividing line seemed a lot clearer.

My very first experience of interreligious dialogue happened at the level of human rights. I was an intern in a human rights organization and the conversation was very legalistic and political. The question was how to maximally serve the human rights of everyone, including those in jail. In the midst of this conversation, which was very secular, we had to confront situations in which those who were detained or missing were actually in trouble in the first place because of their religious convictions or what they understood to be their religious convictions.