Essay: Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core, and Religious Diversity

This essay examines the life and work of Eboo Patel, the president of Interfaith Youth Core, focusing on his efforts to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding. It discusses the different sects of Islam, including Sunni, Shia, and Kharijites, with a particular emphasis on the Ismaili sect to which Patel belongs. The essay highlights Patel's belief in the oneness of God and his advocacy for religious cooperation. It further explores the founding and mission of the Interfaith Youth Core, its partnerships, and its impact on promoting interfaith cooperation among young people. The essay also details Patel's influences, including figures like the Dalai Lama and Brother Wayne Teasdale, and his organization's work across various continents and college campuses. The essay concludes by referencing key publications and the organization's mission to make interfaith cooperation a societal norm.

Running head: EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
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1EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
This essay discusses the personal thoughts of Eboo Patel, the president of Interfaith
Youth Core who aims to change the perspective of the world about the religion and act of the
Muslims. There are different sects of Islam among which the Shia, Sunni and Kharijites are
major divisions. The Sunnis are parted into five major institutes of jurisprudence, namely,
Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanafi, Hanbali and Zahiri. The Shia sect is divided into three sects seveners,
fivers and twelvers (Haynes, 2016). Kharijites are divided into five branches namely, Ibadis,
Adjarites, Azariqa, Sufris and Najdat. Among all these sects, only some have survived.
However, these existing sects are amplified by new schools of thoughts or movements such
as African America Muslims, Quaranist Muslims. These sects were emerged with time and
crisis independently.
Sunni is the largest denomination of the Muslims who believe that the prophet
Muhammad did not appoint any successor to leads the community before he died. They are
referred as the traditional Muslims (Furseth & Repstad, 2017). Shia sect on the other hand,
believe in the spirituality of the family of Muhammad along with the authority of his
decedents. These descendants are known as Imams and have political and spiritual authority
over the community. The Kharijites support the Caliphate of Ali, the grandson of
Muhammad. These Muslims refuse to compromise with those with whom they disagree.
As mentioned before, the Shias are divided in three sects in which the seveners, are
the most popular. In this, one division is the Ismaili sect. Eboo Patel belongs to this Ismaili
sect and believe in the oneness of god. These Muslims believe in closing of divine revelation
with the decent of Muhammad (Hunt, 2017). To these Muslims, Muhammad is the final
prophet as well as messenger of God to all people of the word. They believe that the family
of Muhammad as chosen by divinity which has the sole power to guide and lead the Islamic
community of the world. It is the main difference from other sects of Islam.

2EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
There are huge differences in the believe system and rules between the Ismailism and
other sects of Islam. The Sunni Muslims believe in following verbal sayings of the last
prophet. They reject any exclusion, introduction and interpretation of ‘Sunnah’, the teachings
of Muhammad. In one hand, Ismailis believe in religious rulers and following the teachings
of the Caliphs. However, Sunni Muslims follow secular political leaderships. Sunni men pray
in the mosques and women pray separately at home but Ismailis men and women pray
together in a joint session. In the Ismaili sect, Imam plays significant role in naming the new
born babies and giving permission to the marriages but Sunnis believe these are unforgivable
sins. Both of these sects have different style of rituals (Smith & Smith, 1958). Ismailis do not
believe in sacrificing animals in the name of Allah and subjugation of women. Ismaili women
are more educated than men and are capable of running houses as well as organisations.
Ismailis are mild in nature and rich help in keeping the community strong.
Eboo Patel has detailed his life in his auto biography, ‘Acts of Faith’. Here he has
recorded that he became attracted to the religious diversity in his college but noticed that the
conversation about multiple identities and multiculturalism did not involve people’s religious
identity. He became activist by following the path of Catholic Worker movement by Dorothy
Day (Stark & Finke, 2000). He founded a cooperative living community because he felt that
faith, service and diversity is essential part of civic life but no community could cover all
these. In response to this he established Interfaith Youth Core which was formulated though
the close relationship with Dalai Lama and Brother Wayne Teasdale. This organisation has
been working to bring the young people of different faith together around dialogue as well as
service to humanity (Patel, 2011).
Eboo Patel had experienced relationship with women from different religious
background such as Mormon and Jewish. He had interest in the radical politics of black
movement. Moreover, his thoughts were manipulated by the acts of the people outside

3EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
religion such as Gandhi, Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa (Campbell, 2004). Their
humanitarian efforts inspired him to establish his organisation. In addition to this operation of
IFYC, Eboo has spoken at different colleges as well as conferences across the country. His
organisation Interfaith Youth Core gas partnered with the officials od White House to
develop the American President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge. It
has invited the national schools to make the interfaith cooperation to be campus priority.
Interfaith Youth Core is a non-profit foundation established in 2002 by Eboo Patel.
The stated mission of the organisation is to make the interfaith cooperation a societal norm.
there are more than thirty staff working directly with this organisation under approximately
$4 million budget. This particular organisation works in five continents. Now this
organisation works with the youth of 200 college campuses. Interfaith Youth Core was
established in the 1999 in the Parliament of the World’s Religions under the guidance of
Eboo Patel, Jeff Pinzino and Anastasia White. It was the place where they met Brother
Wayne Teasdale. Eboo was much influenced by the realisation and spiritual transmission of
Brother Wayne. He inspired Eboo spiritually in completing his spiritual journey and fulfil his
dream projects.
Brother Wayne gave language to the emerging spirituality of the heart. To him, the
real religion of the humankind is the spirituality itself. It is because that mystical spirituality
ids the source of all the religion of the world. Therefore, in this third millennium, people
needs to share their ultimate experiences across the traditions which will be serving as the
religion of people. Eboo was greatly influenced by this thought and established Interfaith
Youth Core. It promotes different narrative that emphasizes the cooperation among various
religious as well as secular communities.

4EBOO PATEL, A NEW SECT
References:
Campbell, D. E. (2004). Acts of faith: Churches and political engagement. Political
behavior, 26(2), 155-180.
Furseth, I., & Repstad, P. (2017). An introduction to the sociology of religion: Classical and
contemporary perspectives. Routledge.
Haynes, J. (Ed.). (2016). Religion, globalization and political culture in the Third World.
Springer.
Hunt, S. J. (2017). Alternative religions: A sociological introduction. Routledge.
Patel, E. (2011). Acts of faith. Boston, Mass.: Beacon.
Smith, H., & Smith, H. (1958). The world's religions.
Stark, R., & Finke, R. (2000). Acts of faith: Explaining the human side of religion. Univ of
California Press.