Qasim Rashid is an acquaintance of mine - it would probably be a stretch to call him a friend. This book was funded on Kickstarter and I was one of the 337 backers. Having seen Qasim speak at various events and clips of his regular interviews on Fox News and CNN etc (he’s an official spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, USA - an organization which I am also a member), I was expecting a decent enough book, but not necessarily anything exceptional.
I was blown away by this book. I received a printed copy as part of the Kickstarter (one of the few physical books I read in 2016) and once I started reading it I couldn’t stop. The book is basically a series of stories from Qasim’s life, as well as stories from a number of guest contributors. The theme is reflected in the title of the book - the need for people from different backgrounds to discard their pre-conceptions about what the “other” is like and just talk to each other, listen to each other’s stories and find mutual understanding.
I was deeply moved by ‘A Parent by Any Other Name’, a chapter contributed by NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) nurse, Nusrat Jehan Chaudhry, who cares for premature infants in the NICU but cannot have children of her own. Much of the book is about being Muslim in the US and the need for interpersonal dialog between people of different faiths, but there are also a number of powerful storeis here on race and the continuing struggle of African-Americans for equal treatment in the USA. There are stories from white and black Christians, from Jews and Atheists. Read this book - you’ll be glad you did.