Years ago, when I visited the West Bank to support Palestinian democracy advocates, I found myself beetling through the Arab quarter of Jerusalem’s largest open-air market. It was late, and I was late. My dinner with friends had begun. Nearly all the vendors had closed up shop and so, given the light foot traffic, I felt optimistic about making up lost time.
As I scurried past a young man standing outside his store, he bellowed, “Yes, madam! What can I get for you?”
With my back toward him, I waved and yelled, “Nothing, thank you!”
He hollered, “What color of nothing?!”
My feet froze. My mouth let out an involuntary cackle. I swung around. The cheeky bastard was beaming. At that very second, he’d made the sale. To this day, my mother prays on the green velvet rug that I supposedly didn’t have the time or interest to buy.
Ever since that night, I’ve been reflecting on the souvenir guy. How did he succeed in disrupting my earnest intention to hoof it to a supper that had begun more than an hour ago? And why did I let him not only grab my attention but then sell me merch that I could have picked up anywhere else at a better time?
For starters, his cleverness totally surprised me. While our brains coast on patterns formed by past experiences, curveballs break these patterns. This guy’s curveball widened my brain’s aperture and multiplied my conscious choices. I didn’t have to be fixated on beating the clock. I could slow down and check this joker out.
But why buy from him, too? Having studied it every which way, here’s my conclusion: I wasn’t buying his product; I was buying his spirit. Jaunty. Buoyant. Uplifting.
The souvenir guy didn’t resign himself to my nah. He posed a second—witty— question. In effect, he rejected my rejection of his wares, thereby risking further rejection from me. Mull that one over. Besides choosing vulnerability, he made hay with his choice, all while respecting my autonomy to choose whether I’d humor him.
In its highest form, trust is the confidence I feel that you see me as more than an object for your immediate purposes.
In this context, the word “respect” matters. It comes from the Latin root to “re-spectate,” or look back. I looked back at the merchant because he went first in the respect department. By asking, “What color of nothing?” the merchant elevated me from a customer to a fuller human being, capable of both determination (gotta get somewhere, like, yesterday) and playfulness (go ahead, impress me with your tchotchkes).
By switching his communication from transactional to relational, he made a statement alright. He also made the kind of difference he wanted. Cha-ching, darling. If all this strikes you as overthinking a classic charm offensive, you may need one more bit of context.
My Unforced Error
The souvenir guy’s impact on me had a lot to do with my personal circumstances. Although I couldn’t articulate it at that moment, he had smoked out how ineptly I’d been making the case for my ideas in my book, The Trouble with Islam Today. There, I had passionately argued for reforming the cultural customs that many of my fellow Muslims confuse with our faith, Islam. By the time I encountered this street vendor, I’d soaked up the stress of defending the arguments in my book.
Even before it was published, the voice in my head had whispered, “They’ll crucify you for daring to critique how mainstream Islam is interpreted. Don’t be intimidated. When you’re punched, punch back harder. Show “them” you mean business.” Already, I was othering my future “enemies.”
The voice in my head deserves some credit. It conjured up death threats from online randos and denunciations from self-appointed religious authorities. Sure enough, I got both. But there’s one reaction I wish I hadn’t swatted away. A lot of my detractors quipped that the book’s title should have been The Trouble with Irshad.
They weren’t wrong.
For the record, I stand by my message that Muslims ought to invoke the most glorious of our traditions to reform ourselves. What I’m ashamed of is how I communicated that message—with a win/lose posture that did no favors to me or my capacity for influence.
I didn’t exactly respect my Muslim skeptics, so how could they respect and ultimately trust me?
I warped the possibility of productive discussion into the probability of rancorous debate so I could psychically pulverize my critics. I minimized these opponents as bad-faith actors rather than recognizing their love for the version of Islam that spoke to their souls. I torpedoed rich opportunities to earn from Muslims what the souvenir guy had garnered from me: trust.
In its highest form, trust is the confidence I feel that you see me as more than an object for your immediate purposes. If I trust you to “see” me, I’m more likely to devote the time and energy to seeing you and then hearing you. Blatant hints about the bedrock need to foster trust sailed over my hot head.
Early on, a Jewish friend who championed interfaith peace told me, “You need more love in your narrative about Islam.” I silently scoffed. “More love? I love how Islamic civilization once led the planet in creativity, ingenuity, and diversity. I say so in my book. If Muslims don’t read, that’s their problem!”
It didn’t occur to me that I was mangling my friend’s benevolent advice into yet another win/lose debate. And that this habit ensured Muslims felt no emotional tug to read my book. And that “their issue” would thereby become mine.
Later, a Muslim influencer acknowledged that I had potent arguments. But, she asked, “Where’s your reverence for Islam?” I dissed the question because reverence doesn’t win arguments. Reason does.
False. Reverence—emotion—does win arguments. Why? Stand by.
Thinking and Feeling
Still clueless, I recall an imam summing up the trouble with me. He said, “You don’t have any feeling for Islam.” Can you say, “Triggered”? As a professor at New York University, I resented catering to the feelings of my students so we could milk them for donations down the road. Of course, this wasn’t remotely the imam’s point, but his reference to “feelings” pushed my buttons. Or, more accurately, I permitted him to push my buttons.
You know the meme, “Facts don’t care about your feelings”? The reverse is at least as true: Feelings don’t care about your facts. If I’ve ragged on your convictions and you feel belittled, you’ll be impervious to my facts. You won’t give them, or me, the time of day.
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor sheds light on why that is so, reminding us that humans aren’t thinking creatures with the capacity to feel, but feeling creatures with the capacity to think. Whatever stimuli hits our brains, we’ll first feel something about it. Unless we’re superintentional, even thinking about it will only amount to rationalizing our initial feelings.
Which returns us to the souvenir guy, who radiated joy as he persisted with his pitch. His verve made me feel good about him. Emotionally, I reached a judgment—that somehow, I liked this character. Then I justified my judgment by deciding to peruse his shelves.
Here’s the bottom line for my own attempt at “sales.” I didn’t exactly respect my Muslim skeptics, so how could they respect and ultimately trust me? I consistently reacted when I could have responded. I lapsed into assuming more than engaging. Above all, I duped myself into maintaining that I wanted to make a difference, when my actions (um, reactions) suggested that I wanted, mostly, to make a statement.
Contrast my approach to that of Sabrina Bhojani, the Muslim principal of a Jewish school in my Canadian hometown. Let’s just say she catches it from individuals on all sides. Sabrina is a professional through and through, so when she’s tempted to react to the “us against them” shenanigans of others, she first asks herself, “What’s my purpose here? And how would that purpose be served by what I’m bursting to say?”
It echoes the most powerful question we can ask ourselves before a potentially tense encounter: “Do I only want to make a statement or do I also want to make a difference?”
Sometimes you have to make a statement. Understood. But just beware of the trade-off. You can’t legitimately fault others for not listening if they can’t trust that you’ll listen too, which is where millions of us are now.
This essay is adapted from Irshad Manji’s forthcoming book, Moral Courage: The Gutsy Practice for Influencing What You Can’t Control — at Work, Home, and Beyond (spring 2027).
