Professor Najeeba Syeed discusses community and forgiveness in Vox

Augsburg University professor Najeeba Syeed was featured in an October 21 Vox column by Casper ter Kuile about what different spiritual traditions teach about responding to anger—and how to move from anger to compassion.

Syeed, the El-Hibri Endowed Professor of Interfaith Studies and executive director of Augsburg’s Interfaith Institute, spoke to ter Kuile about the necessity of working together in community.

“[Anger] makes us incapable of seeing the experience of others,” she said. “… If we don’t have a larger identity than our political affiliation—by that I mean the neighborliness, some sense of community that transcends that identitarian political affiliation alone—then we may actually destroy ourselves in the process … If you [take action] by yourself, is it really going to change at the social level? You still have to be able to build allies, and you still have to be able to build connection.”

The article explores approaches to navigating anger rooted in Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam.

Read the full column (via Vox): “What to do if you feel so, so angry at the state of the world”