Robin McGonigle
University Congregational Church
July 3, 2022
My Neighbor’s Faith: Nabil Seyam
Matt. 22:36-40
As part of our on-going sermon series about how to love our neighbor who is different from us, and in celebration of our nation’s birthday this weekend, I want to tell you about my late friend, Nabil Seyam.
Our sermon series focuses on these verses from Matt. 22:36-40:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Nabil went from selling eggs in front of mosques to feed his family and living in captivity under Saddam Hussein and eventually lived the American dream here in Wichita, Kansas. He was a leader in the Wichita Islamic Society of Wichita and the co-founder of the Annoor Islamic School. But let me start at the beginning of Nabil’s story. He grew up in a poor Palestinian home in Kuwait. He was the oldest in his family and had five sisters and four brothers. His family of twelve lived in a 2-bedroom apartment with one bathroom. They had bunk beds all over the place, and blankets for those who slept on the floor. The family was extremely poor. Nabil remembered their breakfast being the best in the world! His mother saved old, hard pita bread and cut it into small pieces and the dumped it into hot tea. Fancy breakfast at Nabil’s childhood home was fried eggs, white cheese, and olives. They always ate all their meals together, with the whole family of twelve eating from the same steel dish.
High school was about fifteen miles away and they had to pay a bus driver to pick them up. If the bus did not show up, they had to walk the fifteen miles in the heat of Kuwait. By the time they got to school, they were exhausted and sweaty
and had missed much of the school day. But they never thought about skipping class 0 because it might mean failing the year. By the time they graduated from high school, they had already taken calculus 1,2, and 3, biology 1 & 2, physics 1 & 2, chemistry 1 & 2, English or French, and many other disciplines. If you flunked one course, you had to repeat the entire year and all the courses over again.
Nabil came to Pittsburg State University and then WSU and graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering. He married an American woman, Carrie, and became a U.S. citizen, but he and Carrie moved back to Kuwait to raise their children there. When Iraq bombed Kuwait in 1990, Nabil lost his job and was arrested, beaten, taken prisoner, and held in Baghdad as a hostage because he held U.S. citizenship. He met Jesse Jackson, singer Cat Stevens, and other celebrities who were trying to free the prisoners from Saddam. Nabil’s 3rd child was born while he was in captivity. Because he was a U.S. citizen, the American diplomats in Baghdad were able to negotiate his freedom and he was released. The experience left him nearly penniless and jobless. Kuwait was too dangerous for him. When he was released, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS interviewed him. He was flown to Amman, Jordan. Ironically, he almost became a captive in Jordan again!
Through a few people his extended family knew, Nabil was able to escape Jordan and flew to Wichita. After 4 months on food stamps and living with his in-laws, he found a job as an engineering inspector. He started studying for a master’s degree in safety engineering. He continued working and studying and earned his Ph.D. in safety engineering.
Nabil was a man of deep faith. When he came back to Wichita, he dedicated himself to the Islamic Society of Wichita and to developing an Islamic School for his children. In 1994, the enrollment jumped from 23 to 125 students. Nabil wanted to establish a full-time Islamic school by 1996. He visited hundreds of churches in Wichita before speaking to me. I immediately told him that I thought we could partner at the church I was serving, but I knew the board had the final decision. Ultimately, we agreed. Nabil came under criticism from his own Muslim community. Some called him an “unbeliever” and others refused to say Salam – “peace” when they saw him. He received dirty looks.
The relationship between us grew. We had many social activities, potlucks and religious gatherings between the Christians and the Muslims. The first year of the Annoor Islamic school was a tremendous success. The students learned Arabic, Qur’an, Islamic studies, and a curriculum drawn from the Wichita Public Schools. Nabil was called a “conservative Muslim” and a “liberal Muslim” all in the same day by his peers. He wrote, “Serving God is an opportunity only those who are fortunate may utilize correctly. I am like any Christian who is volunteering his time for the church.” Being the director of the board makes me even more responsible to attend the prayers and oversee the demands of the community.”
One of the things I learned from Nabil was that many Muslims come from countries with dictatorships and governments where no one is allowed to say anything openly and spies are rampant. Distrust of government is something they know well. When they come to the United States, their mentality is the same. It does not change overnight, of course. Giving their personal opinion or speaking openly in public is not something they do willingly. It feels risky and unnecessary. Nabil’s guess is that 1 in 1,000 immigrant Muslims are willing to take this risk after 9-11.
Nabil became a corporate director of health and safety for an international company and oversaw many plants. He lived in an upscale Wichita neighborhood on a golf course. He spoke about the Qur’an’s mandates for moral living and building peace and justice. Nabil was the recipient of the Leader of the Year in Wichita in 2002. He hosted a popular television series on KPTS called ZYGO. And served on the Visioneering Wichita Steering Committee.
Nabil was killed in a car accident in October 2006.
Nabil taught me much about interfaith dialog, about Islam and about my own faith. One day, he came in my office, and I could tell right away he was angry. He asked, “Did we have communion when we were together yesterday”?
“Absolutely not!” I answered. I knew that Muslims thought Christians use of communion was cannibalism… that eating and drinking the body and blood of
Christ was the same as cannibalism and that they would not do that. Of course we would never share communion with Muslims – it would be a misuse of our own sacrament and insulting to both Christians and Muslims.
“I knew we didn’t,” he said, “but I have a woman in our community who is causing problems.”
“Ah.” This was a problem I understood. When we had joint celebrations, there were almost always misunderstandings and people who gossiped afterward. Often, they were people who did not even attend the celebration. As the years went on, this happened less often, but at first, people from both of our communities participated. “Please let me know what happens,” I said.
The next day, I checked in with Nabil to see how things transpired. It turned out that his board met with the woman and had her list the people she spoke to about the alleged communion. After she made the list, they required her to call each person IN FRONT OF THE BOARD and admit that she was not present for the event and that she lied. She also was required to ask each person to contact those they talked to and tell those people what they now knew. In addition, the board wrote a letter to each member of the community (some 3,000 people) explaining that no communion was received and asked the woman in question to write an apology letter. They prepared the mailing, and she was required to pay for the printing and postage for the mailing.
I learned from Nabil and the Islamic community that it is important to require those who cause trouble and gossip to be held accountable. Addressing those situations openly and immediately may be embarrassing and awkward, but they save difficulty in the long run!
Christians are very curious about the Islamic concept of Jihad. I watched repeatedly how Nabil answered this question when asked. “What would your reaction be if I said to you that I am gay?” he would respond. The Christian would stumble with a reply. Nabil rescued them eventually. “That word has multiple meanings in the English language. I was simply saying that I am happy, but it depends on whom, how and when you use the word. The same is true of Jihad.”
It turns out that Jihad is an Arabic word meaning to struggle, to seek self-improvement, to derive solutions, to come closer to God and to fight oppression. I am quoting from Nabil: “The teacher who struggles in class daily is conducting a form of Jihad; the mother or father who suffers harsh treatment and disrespect from their children is in a form of Jihad; and the believer who lives a godly life where evil surrounds him or her is in Jihad. To be a pious person is a form of Jihad and to defend yourself is a form of Jihad. Out of more than 54 Muslim countries, none has ever declared Jihad. In Islam, fighting is forbidden unless it is for self-defense. If the enemy calls for peace, peace should be accepted. Islam is the religion of peace and peace is the basis of all human relations. The term holy war does not exist in Islam. Al-Qaida, Taliban, and other Islamic groups misunderstand the interpretations of the verses of the Holy Qur’an. I believe with all my heart that those groups believe that what they are doing is 100% Islamic. We need to view every terrorist attack whether it was conducted by an individual or a group as an act independent of the faith even if the attacks were done in the name of religion. Adolf Hitler, Timothy McVeigh, David Koresh, and others do not represent the white man or Christianity. Bin Laden, Saddam, and the Taliban do not represent all Muslims or Islam.”
How do we love our neighbor as ourselves? I would like to tell you that it was simple to share our church with the Annoor Islamic school for 5 years. It was not always easy. There were cultural clashes and some bizarre differences that we had to overcome. It took a lot of communication. I would like to tell you that I always understood Nabil and he always understood me. I do not think that would be completely accurate. He was a Palestinian Muslim man in every sense of the word. I am an American Christian woman in every sense of the word. That brings with it misunderstandings and conflicts. I do know that when 9-11 happened Nabil was my first thought and my second call after my family. I trusted and respected Nabil. In our own ways, we considered ourselves brother and sister and we shared a very sacred love of God.
Resources Used:
Nabil Seyam, Ph.D. “An American Hostage in Iraq.” Bloomington: Author House. 2004.