Richard F. Miller ’62

On life as Imam Muhammad Abdur-Razzaq

"When I came to Dartmouth I was planning on a chemistry major. Somewhere along the line I became interested in people."

"A sociology course called something like 'Western Values' probably had the most influence on me."

"I was always a person who had trouble with his conscience, which meant it was active. While I was working for a bank I didn't like some of the things I was doing."

"I decided it would be ridiculous to travel the world looking for the right guru, so I decided to pray to God."

"Before Islam my life was a struggle—New Year's resolutions I'd strive hard to keep, then find myself breaking."

"My conversion in 1973 was a thing of attraction. The shaikh with whom I studied brought me into a state where I was in love with God and couldn't contemplate doing anything that would displease Him. I became so focused on God I wasn't concerned with other things any more."

“Because I was pursuing the spiritual side of Islam, I didn’t get much grief from family or friends. My mother liked the improvement she saw in my character. It was before the first World Trade Center bombings, when Islam wasn’t seen as such a bad thing.”

"The intellect is not a tool that can understand everything God does. Rearranging your thinking to see God as being the causality in everything is a major turn in one's viewing world events."

"I wasn't campaigning to be an imam, but there's a tradition of the prophet that says if a person desires a position of authority, never appoint him to it. In a strange way that qualified me for the job."

"Being an imam means having people's lives in your hands. If you make a mistake you're really hurting other people."

"It was a real sadness when converts to Islam dropped off after 9/11, because Islam was doing quite well appealing to moderate people. Terrorism put a veil over all of that."

"There's some sort of positive effect of all these accusations against Muslims because it makes moderate Muslims combat extremism within their own communities."

"Right after 9/11 my schedule was completely full with speaking engagements. Every church, every synagogue, every civic group wanted to find out more about Islam."

"Most of the things non-Muslims find obnoxious about Islam are actually civil laws and local customs within Islamic communities. One of the most common misconceptions is that all Islamic countries are ruled by Qur'anic law."

"The dress code for Muslim women drives a lot of non- Muslims crazy, but many Muslim women consider Western women oppressed because they have to dress to please men and put on makeup before leaving the house."

"What people perceive as a religious conflict in the Middle East is actually a struggle for power and wealth. With the possible exception of the Sunni-Shiite confrontations that have been going on for 1,400 years or so, conflicts people characterize in religious terms are primarily secular."

"People tend to be attracted to a religion from a spiritual point of view."

"I can deal with someone saying to me, 'Why the hell would you do something so stupid as becoming a Muslim?' If someone says, 'I'm sorry 1 to say this but Muslims make me feel uneasy,' who is only aware of feelings, how do I talk to a person like that?"

"My shaikh taught me that most fault-finding is the projection of one's own faults. We teachers call someone prejudiced who doesn't agree with our prejudices."

"When it comes to sermons or lectures it's not the topics, it's the people I'm interested in—their hearts and their perceptions. Sometimes people will say, 'What can you teach us about Islam?' And I'll say, 'How many years do you have?'"

Claims to Fame: A Presbyterianturned-Muslim spiritual leader of a Philadelphia mosque (his name means “Servant of the Provider” in Arabic) after years of study with a Sufi shaikh; serves on the Philadelphia Mayor’s Interagency Task Force on Civic Tension and other civic boards; chairs the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia; professional violinist, violin teacher and bagpiper Career: Head imam, Mosque of Shaikh M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, 1984 to present; commercial loan services supervisor, Lincoln Bank, Philadelphia, 1973-75; service supervisor, Dun & Bradstreet, New York City, 1966-73; clinical social worker, U.S. Army, then Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1963-66; schizophrenia researcher, University of Pittsburgh, 1962-63 eduCation: A.B., sociology Family: Lives with wife Myrna, a concert pianist, near his mosque in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia