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You can’t be moral on your own. That’s a radical idea in this time of moral outrage. But thriving in public life requires a sense of mutual accountability, belonging, and hospitality for each other.
Mona Siddiqui is a professor of Religion and Society, an author, commentator, and public intellectual. And she suggests that the virtues of loyalty, gratitude, hospitality, and hope can lead us through the common struggle of being human together. Living forward into a thriving life of public faith and renewed moral imagination.
Mona Siddiqui: Life is all about searching. Life is all about introspection. Life is all about reflection.
Our moral life only becomes alive when we are in a relationship. I can’t be moral on my own. So that the moral relationship is very much, how am I with, not just with friends or colleagues or strangers, but just people in the grocery store, people that I meet, people that I’ve taken their dog for a walk.
And I think we underestimate that a sense of belonging is crucial to being a good citizen.
living on the side of hope rather than fear, allows you to feel a freedom, if you don’t have hope, what do you have? How do you live? How do you continue with life? How do you build relationships?
Even when things are going really well professionally and personally, it’s relationships that matter. They’re the things that make you unhappy or happy.
Pam King: I’m Dr. Pam King, and you’re listening to With And For a podcast that explores the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom to offer practical guidance towards spiritual health, wholeness, and thriving on purpose.
Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious studies Assistant Principal for Religion and Society and Dean International for the Middle East at the University of Edinburgh.
Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence, and ethics, and Christian Muslim relations. She’s the author of many books, including Human Struggle, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, hospitality in Islam, welcoming in God’s name and my way, a Muslim woman’s journey.
a researcher in theology, philosophy and ethics. She’s conducted international research on Islam and Christianity. Gratitude, loyalty, and fidelity. Hope reconciliation and interfaith theological dialogue and human struggle.
Mona is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics, and public life, and regularly appears as a media commentator on BBC Radio four and BBC Radio.
Scotland’s thought for the day and the moral maze.
A recipient of numerous awards and recognition. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She gave the prestigious Gifford lectures in natural theology a she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an international honorary member.
And Dr. Siddiqui was appointed officer of the order of the British Empire. , which is just steps below the highest knighting, specifically for her public interfaith efforts.
To learn more, I highly recommend her books, but you can also follow her on X at mono Siddiqui seven.
In this conversation with Mona Siddiqui, we discuss
the connection between faith, spirituality in living a moral life of responsibility and integrity,
The difference between cultivating, virtuous character and doing justice,
how to thrive in a pluralistic society, marked by constant struggle and conflict,
the promise of gratitude and
hospitality in a life of thriving.
And how to pursue a hopeful forward-looking approach to restoration in the wake of harm, loss, pain and suffering.
Mona, welcome to With and For. I’ve been so looking forward to our conversation. Great to have you here.
Mona Siddiqui: Thank you for the invitation. Great to chat with you.
Pam King: I know enough about you from this side of the pond, to know that your work has many personal aspects for you. And I’d love to hear parts of your story that might inform, especially the work that you’re doing these days of just where you’ve come from, earlier life influences.
Mona Siddiqui: So my kind of primary area of research is basically jurisprudence and I got into that Islamic jurisprudence because I wanted to study with a particular supervisor.
And once I finished my PhD, unfortunately, he died rather prematurely in his late forties. And so it kind of left me feeling, oh, where do I go with my work now? By that time I was married and I’d moved to Scotland and I’d got my first job as a lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
It seemed to me that religion was very much in the public eye for all kinds of reasons. And although I was trying to stick to my kind of research area, 9 11 then happened, and suddenly Islam and everything to do with religion and topics around religion and the kind of darker side of religion became topics for public discourse.
And I got dragged into that, not necessarily because I wanted to focus on that, but because of just who I was and who I am. And I’d already been doing a lot of broadcasting by then, simply because I had got the first lectureship in the Divinity School at Glasgow as a non Christian, non white, non male, so So that had already made news in Glasgow, but,um, I just sort of rolled with it in a way, like whatever was coming towards me, how do I deal with that?
How do I deal with it? Not necessarily as any one identity, not as a female, not as a Muslim, not as a, you know, non whites, not as anything other than I live in a pluralist context. I have an upbringing, which has allowed me to open my eyes to the world. And Be aware that people have all kinds of identities and all kinds of ways of thinking what is the moral life, and I need to create a space in that which appeals to the wider audience, and it’s not just about what I think.
So really, a lot of my work since then, and the comparative side of it, the Christian Muslim, came as a result of my interest in how do we make sense of religious pluralism, but also pluralism in the wider context.
Pam King: Born in Pakistan to Indian Muslim parents who eventually moved their family to England. Mona’s. Cultural, religious, familial, intellectual, and linguistic heritage
represent a pluralistic depth that seems to naturally exude from her work and wisdom?
In her family values of intellectual freedom, exploration, introspection, and courageous public engagement, were all celebrated.
When you talk about pluralism, you have quite a diverse cultural and spiritual heritage yourself. I’d love for you to share a bit about your personal journey of moving in the different cultures you’ve lived in in your own life
Mona Siddiqui: parents migrated from India to Pakistan after partition. And my father, who was a psychiatrist, came over to the UK. And they had only come to stay here for a short while. But they saw the life that the UK offered. They saw the education it offered, and they stayed. And I do think back to that journey that they made.
which would have been so risky in some ways and so challenging. Each, my father and my mother were both the only sibling in their respective families to have just left everyone and everything and travel to the UK. And there were four of us at the time, four siblings here. But I think we grew up with what we would call, yes, a fairly traditional Islamic Urdu speaking background, but it was, The difference I think that we had when I look at my peers at the time was we had a lot of intellectual freedoms.
We didn’t have as girls many social freedoms, but we had a lot of intellectual freedoms. And I think that’s what led to this sense of Life is all about searching. Life is all about introspection. Life is all about reflection. And so there was no, prohibition on what we could discuss or read.
And there was a real liberation in the house because of that. So, it was a strange thing that on the one hand, you know, we grew up with. basic Islamic teaching. My parents never forced anything, but there was a sort of cultural ethos. But at the same time, it was aligned to this read and learn and experience.
and I was the only one out of all my siblings was drawn to the humanities. So my parents, you know, let me travel to France and the Middle East for my studies. And again, you know, when you’re in your twenties and you travel, that’s transformative. So yeah, I think I’ve seen every step as just an opportunity.
What can I learn from this?
Pam King: Asking questions about the moral life. A courage to engage the most difficult cultural issues led Mona into a rich conversational space that allowed a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives to encounter each other in not just a respectful, but also a constructive way.
She offers such illuminating comments on the connections between our lives of religious faith and spirituality, and a moral life of cultivating not just virtue in character, but doing the right thing, seeking justice and peace.
Earlier you said, you asked the question, what is a moral life? When did you start asking that question? What is a moral life?
Mona Siddiqui: That’s a really good question. In a way, I don’t think you ever stop. If you have a faith upbringing, you’re always, I’m not saying this is exclusive to people of faith, but I think that In a way, you’re, you have to think about am I doing the right thing, if you take your faith seriously. And I think if you take your faith seriously, it’s not that you don’t make mistakes.
It’s not that you don’t give into temptation, but you are always reminded that I have to almost answer to myself. You’re not answering to a higher being. You’re answering to yourself in the sense that I don’t feel right about what I’ve done. I don’t feel right about what I’ve said. And so in that sense.
It may be that you don’t really think of it as a moral life. You just think, how, why do I not feel good about this? Why am I facing the shadower side of life more than the joy of life? But I think all these are really about leading you to self reflect. And I think that reflection of how do I live my life usually comes when we are perhaps at our most vulnerable.
when we really are facing challenges, not when we’re strong and we know where we’re going, but really when life gives us this kind of choice that we’d probably rather not have, but we have it. Thanks. And we have to deal with it.
Pam King: You’ve obviously done so much in Islamic theology. And you’ve written so beautifully about your own experience in my way. a Muslim woman’s journey. would you say a bit more how Islamic thought and belief has shaped you and also what you’ve gleaned from other philosophical, and religious or spiritual traditions?
Mona Siddiqui: So the interest in comparative, largely Christian, Christian theology came as a result of the seminars I was involved in with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, post 9 11, that were bringing people of faith, but also scholars together, not necessarily interfaith, but just to discuss the issues of faith.
kind of heavy themes, you know, salvation, prophecy, God, death. And I was really kind of inspired by those, A, because I’ve, I thought if I’m going to do this seriously, I need to know a little bit more about Christian theology. I really need to do it as a scholarly exercise, not just as an interfaith presence.
I would say that in some ways I try not to distinguish, I mean, of course, doctrinally there are lots of differences between Islamic theology and Christian theology, but if the core of your faith is what does God want from me? And that is applicable to both traditions. And both traditions speak of the moral life and of the good life, of compassion, of how one leads a life knowing that the good life is hard.
It’s not that, you know, you follow this tradition and some things will be easy. So in some ways, the whole comparative aspect of my research ended up becoming very much part of my inner ethos as well. And so an example I gave is from Islamic theology, and for me, waking up knowing that I have a sense of God inside me is what drives me.
I don’t know how else to say it really. it’s not that, you know, I’m a very devout, I pray all the time, or I do various things, but this sense that I am accountable, you know, I am responsible.and I think what I got from my dealing with Christian colleagues and friends was very much this emphasis on non judgmental.
If I really wanted to talk to somebody about something that I was struggling with. I would often find that I could go to a Christian colleague, whether it was their faith that made them or whether it was just their personality, it’s difficult to, you know, it’s difficult to disentangle these things.
But I did feel this sense of, I want the best of both theological worlds.
Pam King: Mm
Mona Siddiqui: you know, what drives one faith and what drives the other faith. They don’t have to be as disparate as people make them out.
Pam King: Our moral lives exist in. Relationship and reciprocity
and that core truth creates fascinating and far reaching implications on how we belong to one another, how we’re accountable and responsible, how we experience loyalty in our lives between each other.
And I think the questions of who we’re loyal to, who we’re responsible to, and who we’re accountable to, these are the very questions our society is very publicly struggling with right now.
how far reaching does our responsibility go? Just ourselves, God and neighbor, our families, and close friends. The state, the globe,
just what do we owe each other?
And I so appreciate that notion of accountability and responsibility. I think that’s quite a counterculture impulse, in this day and age. And I’m wondering if you have insights in how people in more pluralistic or perhaps non religious settings might cultivate more of a sense of responsibility or accountability,
Mona Siddiqui: I mean, I do, I have had conversations with people who, who,and especially colleagues or friends who are Christian who will say, you know, we’re all flawed. Okay, we’re all flawed. So.rather than look at things legalistically or in the context of accountability, look at things like we’ll make mistakes, you know, you have to have heart, we’ll make mistakes, but we need forgiveness.
And I can see the appeal of that. But I also think that there’s a kind of get out clause there that it almost, stops you from actually understanding that being accountable is really hard, you know, being responsible is hard as well. And so I’m not doing it because I want people to think of Islam in a certain way or me in a certain way.
Ultimately, the only person I’m answering to, the only being I’m answering to is God. But at the same time, God doesn’t need my obedience. God doesn’t need anything from me. So in some sense, all I can do is how do I live the moral life so that those around me, and I, by that, I don’t mean just family, but the very physical community around me, whoever that physical community is made up of, how are they impacted by how I act?
Because if you think about it, our moral life is only becomes alive when we are in a relationship. You know, if someone is standing in front of me, that’s when I decide How am I going to be with that person? I can’t be moral on my own. So that the moral relationship is very much, how am I with, not just with friends or colleagues or strangers, but just people in the grocery store, people that I meet, people that I’ve taken their dog for a walk.
And I think we underestimate that a sense of belonging is crucial to being a good citizen. That if you don’t feel that sense of belonging, that you are part of this visible and invisible web of human relations, then you might not feel a sense of belonging and you might make others feel that they don’t belong.
And I think that’s a really unhappy feeling, a sense of, I don’t belong in a place.
Pam King: Definitely. , in your studies on loyalty, does that sense of belonging factor into loyalty as you conceive it?
Mona Siddiqui: Yes, I think so. I think the question of loyalty is, are we loyal to people or principles? And most often than not, we’re loyal to people. But then when people do things that go against our principles, what is the moral answer to that? Do we carry on being loyal because a person, because faithfulness, which is really important in that.
but I think also loyalty to the state. can be very demanding. You know, the state may make you feel that you don’t belong. The state may put in laws that make you feel I’m an outsider. And I don’t just mean in terms of religious communities, but it could be all kinds of things. So there is a sense that I think it’s very much precisely because I feel loyal to the country that I was raised in, that I should also be a critic of it.
That I should also say, how do I make things better? It’s not just about accepting everything. It’s about, and I think that kind of public discourse we’ve lost, at least I would say to a large extent in the UK, that as soon as anybody says anything critical, it’s like, If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else.
As if somehow that’s the level at which we have these public conversations.
Pam King: I appreciate, your emphasis on reciprocity in loyalty, that it’s a very active dynamic engagement of not just being dutiful and following, but also contributing and contributing can be, positive critique, or helpful challenge.
Mona Siddiqui: Yes, and also that, you know, it’s when I contribute that I, to society that I feel a sense of belonging. I can’t wait to feel a sense of belonging and then contribute. Because that might never happen. So I have to be engaged with people around me, with institutions around me to feel that, yes, no, I do have a place here.
It’s not easy all the time for everyone, I know that, but I don’t see any alternative to that, nor do I see an alternative to pluralism in these countries, where ideas and attitudes are not necessarily living side by side, but sometimes they’re colliding in the same space. so yeah. So
Pam King: Also within the context of your, writing and talking about Islam is you highlight the importance of remembering God. And I’m curious how that spiritual practice influences your engagement in this moral life.
Thank you.
Mona Siddiqui: there’s a tradition in Islam that the first stage of belief is the first is Islam, the sort of religion, the surrender. The second stage is faith, where you sort ofbelieve in the doctrines. But the third stage is the highest, Ehsan, which is to act that even though you do not see him, he sees you.
Now, I think that it’s almost impossible to have that in your mind all the time. But I think you can cultivate that practice. And it stops you from sometimes saying something that you know is going to hurt someone. It stops you from doing things that you know may be hurtful, not just to other people, but to yourself.
and I don’t see it necessarily as a bar or a kind of, obstruction. I see it as, I’m only going to flourish as a result of this. I’m only going to feel better as a result of this. And so this sense of, you know, how do I carry God inside me is very much infused with, does that feeling make me feel good about my life, about the way I’m acting, about the people around me?
Are they, does their reaction to me make me feel that our relationship is It’s good. It’s not broken. It’s not leading to this path of brokenness. Um,and I do think that being with people in a way, you know, the golden rule of how you want others to be, is actually very easy to say, but actually quite hard to do.
But I think we need, I think people are aware, and if you cultivate that, I do feel that it has huge, benefits to your emotional and spiritual life?
Pam King: These reflections on Relationship led us to the meaning of thriving and flourishing and the role that community plays in living well.
I noticed in much of your discussion of a moral life, I do see you explicitly connect that to the good life or flourishing, that the moral life is necessary, for flourishing. Do I have that correct?
Mona Siddiqui: Well, people can just differentiate what, you know, morality is. Some people, for some people, the moral life may be very different to what I think is the moral life. and I completely get that. But I think at its very basis, the moral life has to be one where it’s not just about you. You know, everything from dawn to dusk is not just about centering on you.
And that’s not easy nowadays, because so many people. can barely get through the day, just centering on themselves, never mind centering on anyone else. Let me put it this way, I, one thing I regret is that I didn’t create more of a sense of community around me.
In the sense that my parents always lived away from any community, like, religious or otherwise. We had friends, but we were never immersed in any one community. And I grew, when I grew up and I moved away and had married and had my own children, and we always also lived separately. We were never part of a wider missing community or any kind of community.
So they had friends, we had friends, I had colleagues and friends, but it wasn’t a sense of I’m embedded somewhere. And I think sometimes the sense of community is very assuring. But it almost, in a way, some of the morality is there for you, if you see what I mean.You’re already embedded in a cultural life where you don’t have to think too much on your own about stuff.
Things are happening around you. People are saying things and doing things and asking you things that is not necessarily challenging in the same way. When you’re sort of living on your own or creating your own sense of, I want my children to grow up like this or I want my life to be like this, A lot of the time you’re having a conversation with yourself, and the only other being that is part of that conversation is God, for me.
And so it’s almost like, well, I need to sure that what I’m thinking and doing is the best I can do under these circumstances. And that took a long time for me to be at peace with that, and I think that’s all you can do.
Pam King: Now maybe when you hear the word virtue or virtuous, it feels stale or preachy, judgy or moralizing, and yet all of our moral conversations tend to proceed along the lines of right and wrong, good or evil. In many ways, it’s easier, but maybe too easy to the point that we lose track of ourselves. Our character as we argue for the moral causes, we hope to pervade society.
We took this in such an interesting direction. Parenting our parents, set the character context for all of us. And we know that in many ways that can go wrong, but the ways parents set an example and support values and virtues is one of the moral foundations of our society.
Yeah, And that’s wonderful to have that very flexible notion of how to act and live morally, which I so gravitate to your emphasis on virtues in much of your work. And as a psychologist with a background in Christian theology, I tend to understand virtues as moral habits of constellations.
of beliefs and thoughts and emotions and actions that we habituate in order to do the right or the in that moment. But so much of it ends up becoming automatic.
Mona Siddiqui: Yes, the Aristotelian thing, you want to lead a virtuous life, you do good stuff, and you become a good person. Absolutely. I agree with that.
Pam King: I, am curious that Why have you ended up not completely, but focusing on virtues, not just specific virtues, but
a
virtue
Mona Siddiqui: I think as a scholar, there’s so much mileage in that. Very few people have touched on these virtues and the shadow side of these virtues. So that appeals to me. It’s very easy to say gratitude as a person of faith. Of course, gratitude is a huge virtue. you know, there is no faith without gratitude for me.
But at the same time, as a scholar, there is a dark side to gratitude. There is a dark side to loyalty. And so for me, this sense of how do people talk about virtues, and at the same time, you look at some of these people and they’re not necessarily leading that virtuous life. It then becomes for me, oh, you’re just doing this as a scholarly exercise.
You’re not really involved in the practice of it. And you know, this isn’t my judgment on some people, this is them acknowledging it. That it’s just for them as a, you know, a scholarly enterprise. So yes, we do know that for the, uh, Greco Romans, the idea of leading a virtuous life was very much practice.
If you practice, you became a good person. But I think, you know, I think that we almost denigrate the virtuous life in public life at the moment, as if somehow you’re moralizing, you’re preaching, and there’s no space to moralize, there’s no space to, you know, even in our education establishments at universities, you can’t moralize, you can’t teach philosophy as a moral discipline, you have to teach it as an abstract discipline of thoughts and ideas.
So where is the space to talk of virtues as something that maybe you could cultivate, you know, if you really want to lead a good life. And I think those spaces are becoming fewer and fewer. So it was all those various dimensions to virtues that drew me in. Like we don’t really talk about it as a moral practice, but even as a scholarly exercise, I want to see what people really think of these virtues.
Pam King: Absolutely. So just to push this, you have children.
perhaps as a parent, you have thought, I would love to see these virtues nurtured in my children’s life. Maybe that’s something you have thought or not. But I’m curious if what thinking as a parent, or if you were speaking to parents, what might be practical ways of conceiving of how to habituate or cultivate virtue?
Mona Siddiqui: Yeah. I mean, I have three, three young men now, three boys, but I, For me, it was very much, yes, faith mattered, honesty, sincerity, not sneaking around, those things also mattered. And I say that partly because I know the challenges of trying to live your faith in a context, in a culture where everything is designed to be against that faith.
You know, so them going to school and their friends are all doing one thing, they’re not allowed to do certain things, then they go to university and they’re friends. And so for me, it was, I can’t give them freedom and emphasize the value of freedom and then suddenly say, that’s enough freedom.
That’s, you know, you’ve got to draw back. Let them be who they want to be as long as they feel that they can confide in me and lead as much as possible an honest life as they can, rather than one, which is one of hypocrisy, one, which is, I’ll say one thing to one old audience and another thing to another audience.
I’ve, Even when they were very little, I said, whatever you say outside in public, you should be able to say here. And whatever you say here, you should be able to say outside in public. I don’t want you leading double lives. because I’ve seen the destruction it had caused to so many,other families.
you know, now they’re older, they’re in their late twenties, one of them is married. And he’s married and non Muslim. And so that was in a sense a challenge for me. Like, how am I going to accept this? Butwhat was important for me is he’s happy. He’s happy and he hasn’t changed in the way I brought him up.
Like those principles of being honest and talking to me and thinking through things and not just rushing in because he just wanted to, those were really important to me. So I think you grow as your children grow, your ideas enlarge as your children grow up, because they are the biggest challenge in your lives in many ways.
I don’t mean in a negative sense, I mean in a positive sense as well.so underneath it all, I think for me, the virtue of, is a parent child relationship important all the way through life? Yes. And that’s, It’s much harder than it seems when they’re under your control, if I can put it that way.
When they make their own lives, you have to do a lot of the work to make surethat that rapport stays almost intact. But it’s worth it.
Pam King: Absolutely. That was so beautifully said. I really appreciate that. I also really appreciate how you,you know, invited your sons to a life of integrity. And that harkens back to that concept of accountability and responsibility that you said earlier, but you’re not imposing your belief system on who you’re accountable to, but offering them a lens to be, you’re accountable to yourself and
personal integrity wins in the end.
Mona Siddiqui: does.
Pam King: if that’s a
Mona Siddiqui: You have to live with yourself. That’s the hardest thing most of us do, you know, whether it’s good or bad. How do we live with the decisions we’ve made? Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how close you are to anyone, you know, it’s what you think of and how you’re feeling when everything else is silent.
And that’s when you know, have to think, did I do the right thing? Did I say the right thing? What do I do about this tomorrow?
Pam King: One of my hopes for With and For and the work of the Thrive Center is to glean scientific and spiritual insights for us to implement in both our personal and our public lives. And it’s all too easy to bash the political discourse of this era, which is truly destructive. Sometimes no wonder it’s characterized by fear and hate.
The abuse and outrage is palpable, but Mona believes we all still prefer a reasoned debate to hurling epithets in retaliation.
Imagining a public life without fear creates an interesting contrasting space for hope to emerge. In particularly the hope of younger generations, and for all the stories about childhood languishing, ranging from malnourishment to war zones, to mental health, to literacy, but despite this monies, a living hope in the goals and dreams of the young, as Mona told me, living on the side of hope rather than fear.
A beautiful sense of freedom,
In speaking of public dialogue, about hard things, moral things, religious things pertaining to life, currently it, you know, I’m coming from the United States, obviously, but there is such a charged atmosphere.
People are so cynical, sometimes they’re jaded. or they can be apathetic or bored. But there’s also so much fear and outrage,and sometimes hatred. And I’m curious how you stay so hopeful, in these conversations. And what advice do you have for people who desire to engage in public dialogue, not being driven by fear, but to be oriented more towards a hopeful stance?
Mona Siddiqui: I think that it’s really easy to hurl abuse at other people. You know, it’s really easy to say, you’re wrong. I am right. You’re on the wrong side of history. Most people don’t really want that. Even if we think that people are outraged, most people would still rather listen to a reasoned debate because we can’t live on the margins of society.
We can’t live in fear all the time. It’s. It’s impossible to live with outrage all the time, even if some people cultivate it. Because it’s, A, it’s not healthy, but B, it doesn’t really take you anywhere. You’re just an angry person. And I think in recent years, the whole focus on culture wars has made it easier for people to be on opposite sides of every problem.
ethical issue there is. And a sense of grievance also has created a cultural context in which it’s very easy, almost fashionable, to be outraged all the time by something. And so you do need people who can say, I understand where you’re coming from, but what about this? But how about this?
Rather than, you’re wrong. Because nobody wants to be told they’re wrong. and I don’t think that I’ve ever been drawn to that, even in personal relationships where I’m simply just shouting at someone or saying you’re wrong. Of course, you can have arguments with family and all the rest, but in the sense that at the end of the day, if anything is worth preserving, you have to go back to it.
You have to rethink, how do I actually salvage this? You know, if it’s a personal argument, I need to salvage it. If it’s a relationship worth holding on to, but if it’s a public discourse, I actually need to then retract. And not just say what would be the easy answer, but actually think to why that person is arguing in that way.
and so then it becomes a little bit more complicated, but I think it makes a much better audience hearing because then you’re going drilling down into something rather than it’s just a spat between two people.
Pam King: I know a lot of young people who, don’t feel a lot of hope because of the antagonism in the public space. And I think hope is a very rigorous and, potentially exciting and powerful virtue. I’m wondering how we maintain hope even when there seems to be a lot of despair and disarmament.
Mona Siddiqui: So this current project I’m looking at is looking at schoolchildren from both Backgrounds and not so privileged. And I’m asking them what hope means in their life. And it is interesting that the majority are very hopeful. They don’t lose faith as a source of hope, but they are hopeful about their lives, their futures.
But I don’t think that young people are as hopeless as is often narrated to us. I think it, I think states can live. or perpetuate this sense of fear because it allows them to control society in a certain way. And I think living in that sense, living on the side of hope rather than fear, allows you to feel a freedom, allows you to almost think, no, I don’t care that this, they’re saying this or this will happen.
I’m still going to go forward with hope. I can still feel that I can make things better. And I think a lot of young people are actually far more full of hope. and kindness than we recognize them for. they just need the spaces to be able to express themselves. They need to be able to feel that their opinion matters, their voices matter.
and it’s not just to do with, you know, hope as a religious virtue. If I’m thinking of hope as a normative virtue, then I think If you don’t have hope, what do you have? Yes, I’m interested in the dark side of hope as well. I’m interested in, is hope just unrealistic expectation? Is it just a burden that we carry with us?
Because, So many of our desires and aspirations will not come true. But actually, if you don’t have hope, then how do you live? How do you continue with life? How do you build relationships?and again, I would say that, like with most negative things, it’s much easier to be negative. And positivity takes more out of us.
building relationships, building anything, building a home, building a friendship. But those are the things that give meaning to our lives.
Pam King: I love to make people feel welcome and at home. So I love hosting friends, family, students, and colleagues, and probably like many of you, I want people to feel deeply seen and cared for when I’m hosting.
Mona’s work on hospitality is an important cornerstone for her public ethics, she poses the question,
how do you make someone feel when they enter your home? How do you make people feel when you enter a dialogue with them?
What if we were to carry that effort from the way we host a party, a sleepover, or a neighborly visit to the way we encounter one another in public spaces, in social media spaces, legal or political spaces? I think we’d see a different world of peach and mutual understanding emerge.
What would the practice of a mutual radical hospitality look like in your life? How would that shape our world today?
One of the solutions you have offered of these social rifts, often is the practice of hospitality. I’d love to hear you, explain your understanding of hospitality and how that is particularly helpful, and poignant for our challenges of belonging these days.
Mona Siddiqui: Yeah. so for many philosophers, hospitality was the virtue, you know, it’s the only ethic that matters. Hospitality, and I think in its deepest sense, that how do you retain a culture of trust? openness and welcoming. With all the reservations you may have about who you’re welcoming and why, but that actually, that space of when somebody comes into your home, which is how most of us do hospitality, is that transformative bit.
How do you make somebody feel when they enter your home? And it just occurred to me, it was actually a very personal lunch I was having with a younger student. And we, I mean, I knew him well, but we, there was a dessert that came and he said, Oh, do you want to share this dessert with me? It’s too much for me.
And I just thought he’s crossed so many boundaries, but the way he actually asked and it was so warm and I said oh of course I’ll do this and I just thought that space of hospitality when somebody just does something for you or says something to you that suddenly makes you feel closer is such a warm feeling that it can’t really be replicated by any other gesture.
Whether you go to a foreign country and you know you have a nice experience with a taxi driver or somebody says something nice to you immediately feel different about your environment even if It’s the first time you’ve been there. but hospitality is a philosophical tool for me. It’s very much about, if we’re going to be moral citizens, how are we with everyone who enters our life?
Not just the people we want to enter. And you know, with our emphasis on issues of migration, issues of, you know, How do you retain cohesion in society? These are really challenging questions. I don’t think there are easy answers. But I also think that just looking at things in a negative way that we want to keep people out as if somehow people have not moved for centuries.
People have always moved. Migration has always happened. and it’s only going to get more and more frequent with climate change. We need to take these things seriously, that hospitality isn’t just, oh, welcome, and you can just take over my home. But it’s a matter of how do you negotiate with where people can have space, feel they belong, but also feel loyal to the people and the spaces and the country that has welcomed them.
Pam King: You also use the word space. They need space. to actually hear their voice, share their opinions, and that when we are hospitable, whether it’s in your home or in an exchange, in an elevator, and create space for people to offer their voice, that, that’s very important.
A lot of these things start to point or here are themes of what I think that involve thriving. And I ask all my podcast guests, what is thriving to you? So I’d love to throw that question to you. And what is thriving from your vantage point?
Mona Siddiqui: it’s an interesting question for me at the moment, because personally, I think I’m going through. a period of where I might transition to wanting to do something else or leave the institution where I’m at. And it’s these moments where you feel suddenly the whole world is open. You could do various things.
Your children are fine. They’re doing well. you’ve got your health, you’ve got time to think. And technically all those things should make you feel, wow, this is great. But actually you’re thinking, I don’t want so much choice. I don’t know what I really want now. You know, I know I want something different, but what do I really want to do?
And in a way, I think it’s fantastic. And I’m very grateful that I’m in this position. At the same time, I’m thinking suddenly when routine and expectations fall to the wayside. you’re left very much very free and thinking this freedom is a little bit of a burden. Like, I don’t know what to do with this freedom.
I have choices. I have ideas. Where do I really want to focus? And I think ultimately I realized that there are two or three things I have to keep doing that are going to keep me centered. I think being centered. is almost as important or maybe a path to thriving in the sense that I know I have to keep writing.
My writing, at least my current book, has taken a bit of a blip for the last couple of years. I have to keep writing and I have to keep speaking out because those are the things that kind of drive me.but thriving in a sense of, feeling emotionally fulfilled. I think that takes people as well. That’s not just about your career and your direction.
That takes who’s in your life, who isn’t in your life, who would you want to be in your life. And that is far more complicated, I think, because you need certain people around you to just help you feel that, yes, You have purpose, you are doing things, but you also need other people around you to give you, you know, other kinds of joy.
So I think that sense of how do I rely on or build a community that can do different things is really where I think people find that they can flourish. But I think it’s hard to find that. I think you’re very lucky if you have both the centre and that sense of community that helps you thrive.
Pam King: Absolutely. I really appreciate you sharing that complexity. And then over time, how those things
slightly change and people change and kids move out of your house and
Mona Siddiqui: I mean, you know, you realise early on in your life that your expectations of what you want from whether it’s your friends or your partner change as you get older. Like, one person doesn’t have to be everything in your life. You can have different things with different people, but even that takes time to figure out, is this a loyalty thing?
Is this a betrayal thing? And then you realize, no, that’s just very human that, Our expectations of our relationships, friendships, whatever, can be maybe reflections of what we want to be or what we want. And then we realize, actually, that the realistic expectation is something where you honor somebody else, what they’re giving you, rather than what you want them to give you.
And. you look to yourself as well and you think, what am I giving to this relationship? So I think even as you’re thinking about your career and human flourishing, that relation, I think relationships are the hardest thing we do, but they’re the most rewarding and they can help us feel that we’re thriving, but they can also help us feel that despite all the success, I still feel I’m not quite there.
Pam King: it’s a journey.
We live in uncertain and complex times and that’s pretty tough for those of us who long for the safety of certainty and simplicity.
So this brings out something common to the human condition struggle. We strive, we persevere. We also falter and fail, but this push and pull keeps us honest with ourselves and reminds us of our very vulnerable condition.
Mona’s work on human struggle reveals some of the positives that might emerge from our struggles, creativity and change, moral and spiritual formation, and ultimately an affirmation of human dignity. in 2016, you gave one of the most or the most prestigious philosophical, theological lectures at the Gifford Lectures. And, and you spoke on struggle. And I’m really interested in thriving. I recognize you realize they’re very interrelated. I’d love to hear what you think about struggle and especially the role of uncertainty and complexity
Mona Siddiqui: thank you, Pam. The struggle theme came out as a result of this kind of comparative Christian Muslim work, where I saw that the focus on suffering for Christian theology was, you know, there’s a huge focus on suffering here. And I thought, actually, Islam doesn’t have the same focus on suffering. But it does have a focus on struggle, and actually we don’t talk about struggle, sometimes we conflate the two, suffering and struggle are the same.
But suffering may be construed as an existential state, where struggle is something that each of us, all of us face at some time in our lives. So I just wanted to really look at that, and then the book was structured in such a way that I had two or three chapters that were comparative, looking at two different scholars and how they dealt with struggle.
It was a very challenging book to write, because To give us lectures, it was fun, but to actually write it in a way that was still coherent, it was quite difficult. and I think that for me, this sense of living in uncertain times, but also living with personal uncertainty, when you suddenly think, oh, I thought I had my life mapped out.
And now this has happened, or that has happened. All of us face that, and it’s that’s the struggle that I was interested in. Like what do you do when you are faced with something that could be life changing? Not necessarily negative, but positive as well. who do you think of? Do you just think of yourself?
Do you think of, kind of, where does family come in? Where does your partner come in?and I think that’s when I thought, right, I’m going to compare people whose work I know a little bit. But also think about the struggle that religious traditions are facing in, in, in modern life. And also the kind of philosophical trajectory of how people have talked about uncertainty as a state in which we’re in, that life is becoming very fluid.
Life, there are no certainties anymore. There are no meta narratives because we don’t turn to philosophy without, most of us don’t turn to religion for that. So where do we get the better narrative of what it is to lead the good life? So all these different aspects kind of came to this center around human struggle.
Pam King: From that perspective, would you say that struggle in terms of dealing with uncertainties will become normative and maybe be less of a struggle, or is there a way to befriend that kind of uncertainty and struggle in it?
Mona Siddiqui: I, I think irrespective of where we are in life, we’ll always face struggle of some sort, but I think uncertainty is perhaps a more modern phenomenon in the sense that so many of the structures, even in the last 30, 40 years that we sort of took for granted the family.the community that’s kind of falling by the wayside.
So we’re living far more fragmented lives now in some ways. We’re creating our own community, we’re creating our own family, fine, but a lot of the ties that we grew up with maybe 30, 40 years ago are no longer there. And so I think a lot of people, and that’s probably why so much research shows that people feel lonely despite having so much connection, or because I think that sense of what it’s really to connect to other people is not there.
That it takes time, it takes emotion, it takes, you know, a relationship is demanding, whatever kind of relationship it is, but it can be demanding in a really good way. but I do think we live in very fragmented times when people are not sure of a lot of things. and that creates this sense of uncertainty and insecurity.
Pam King: Absolutely. I’m going to ask, what are the positives of struggle? You talk about creativity, change, moral and spiritual formation, and ultimately an affirmation of dignity. What are those
Mona Siddiqui: I think it keeps you focused on what kind of person do I want to be. I mean, if you have faith, then you have to continue whatever the challenges might be. Um,what are the things that challenge your faith? What are the things that challenge the way you thought you’d raised your family, your, your relationship with your friends or whoever?
and I think that sense of introspection is a good thing. Because it’s very easy to be complacent. It’s very easy to be complacent about everything, to be honest. Say, you know, as long as I’m okay, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter if this is happening. I’m not saying that we should all be virtue warriors of any sort, but in the sense of, you know, it, it should affect us when things are going wrong in society.
It should affect us to the point where we should be able to feel that if we can’t say something, we can do something. If we can’t do something, we can at least think that there’s something not right here. And what can I do in my own small way to make things better? Um, so one of the writers I’m looking at who’s a, from the Islamic tradition, he talks about the sense of loss of beauty that, you know, we’ve lost a sense of the beauty of religion.
And he’s talking from the Islamic tradition, that religion is there just to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, as opposed to this beautiful aesthetic that shapes your life, where the longing for God, the longing for the divine, the longing for something else in your material life is what enhances it.
And I think there may be some truth in that, that for a lot of people, uh, at least in many Western countries, where things are a little bit more fractured and compartmentalized, there’s a sense that, you know, when do people turn to faith? Why do they turn to faith?and what does their faith mean in the ordinariness of their life, as opposed to something they do when they’re just feeling very alone or traumatized or vulnerable.
Pam King: Okay. Mona has suggested that there is no faith without gratitude and has written that she sees gratitude as, quote, a response to human vulnerability and the vicissitudes of life.
In the world of self-help, gratitude has played a significant role in recent years, but there are some shadow sides to gratitude that we don’t often talk about. Some people have approached gratitude in a very quick fix, shallow kind of way. We might list off the small things we’re thankful for or write a letter. We also teach it as an obligation of polite society. It’s a way to be nice or civil. Or as a very transactional economy of indebtedness,
but gaze upon gratitude and you’ll find it’s a virtue with incredible depth and power.
.
Mona Siddiqui: So as a person of faith, I think there is no faith without gratitude. That, you know, gratitude for my life, everything. but I think in terms of societal bonds, gratitude creates hierarchies. It creates a sense of indebtedness. It creates a sense of. you know, and institutions can keep people in their places, making them feel you should be grateful you have a job, you should be grateful you were promoted, you should be, and often institutions can deny us what’s rightfully ours, or make us feel that we haven’t earned it, that it’s been bestowed on us, as if somehow we have to be grateful for that.
So there’s a kind of transactory nature to gratitude in our institutions, which I find problematic. And of course, a lot of abuse goes on in the name of gratitude in institutions. Uh, you know, whether it’s adults feeling that their rightful place hasn’t been recognized or whether it’s institutions between adults and children.
and I think so there is this shadowy side to gratitude as well, . You know, we,we say thank you without thinking about it most of the time, because it’s a transactional thing. At the same time, I think it’s good that we do it because it still makes somebody feel good that you’ve acknowledged something they’ve done.
But I think translated then to institutions and to something higher up, that sense of and who are you saying thank you to and why can become quite, you know, difficult. shadowy.and the more I say thank you, will I get more? that sense of civility creeps in, as opposed to accountability and a sense of integrity, that no, I’m not going to sell my soul for this.
I’m not going to do this. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to fight about everything, but it does mean that I have certain boundaries and certain standards. So in that sense, I think gratitude as a concept can be used in institutions that may not be used as the word itself, but the sentiment behind it is often used to keep people in their places.
Pam King: That’s a very helpful perspective. you wrote, I see gratitude as a response to human vulnerability and the vicissitudes of life. So if not thinking of the shadow side of gratitude, when is gratitude good and what does it have to do with human vulnerability?
Mona Siddiqui: I think that in the sense of, um, when I feel things aren’t going well, when I do feel vulnerable, of going down that sort of rather oppressive tunnel. I have to lift myself out and think, actually, I have this, this, and this going really well. Let me center on that rather than what is not going well, or let me focus on what I have rather than what I don’t have.
And I know these things sound simple, but they actually, you do have to cultivate this. And I think that sense of always focusing on the good that you have rather than what you don’t have. It doesn’t make you complacent, it doesn’t make you less ambitious, it doesn’t make you not wanting things more, but it makes you at least aware that a lot of good is happening in your life as well, even if you’re in a dark place or a place that you want to get out of.
and I think that’s what you will need to hold on to. Otherwise, a lot of people fall into despair.
Pam King: Mona’s concluding remarks led us toward her sense that while injury will always leave a mark, restoration and repair is less about looking backward than it is about moving forward.
Mona Siddiqui: Sometimes it’s very easy to leave a conflict as it is.sometimes you’re so hurt that you need a distance, or things have gone so badly wrong that you need to think how can that ever be repaired, whether it’s a relationship or whatever.
But I think that Again, it’s, in a way, it’s gratitude in the sense of how do I re center and focus on what is important that takes me back to, you know, I can’t just leave that there. I have to do something. If it’s a relationship, even if it’s picking up the pieces very slowly, you have to do it. Uh, because most of us think when we’ve had an argument, to hell with it.
You know, I don’t care, that person has done this, but if you really are true to yourself, you don’t dismiss it, it bothers you. You feel, how could I have made that better? How could I have not said that or said something different? How could I have said something a bit more healing? Not to take away the responsibility from the other side.
But I think it is this sense of feeling, well, actually, if you have faith, A, life is too short, and B, what does, what really does matter in your life at the end of the day? Even when things are going really well professionally and personally, it’s relationships that matter. They’re the things that make you unhappy or happy.
So what can you restore? Sometimes you can’t restore, and sometimes I think you have to look after yourself. You have to just distance yourself. But where something can be restored, I think all of us probably feel much better in our own sense of being if we’ve helped to repair something, even if it’s not fully restored, but it’s not being left completely broken.
Pam King: Mona, thank you so much for joining us. I’m so grateful for your depth and breadth of wisdom. find it all very inspirational. Thank you so much.
Mona Siddiqui: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Pam King: I see Mona Siddiqui as one of our international beacons of hope that we might find restoration hospitality and flourishing in our world of struggle. Working through questions of loyalty, responsibility, belonging, gratitude, robust faith, and what we owe each other.
We can find abundant resources for thriving in spiritual health.
The key takeaways that I will carry with me from this conversation are the following.
I can’t be moral on my own, but my decisions are my own. In the end, living with integrity means living with virtue.
personal and public flourishing are deeply connected to our lives of faith and spirituality, and all of us need to bring the depths of our personal spiritual commitments into public life.
We can offer hope and freedom from fear to each other when we expand our hospitality to all persons.
The practice of gratitude in the face of our vulnerability is easier said than done, but is a strengthening response to uncertainty and suffering.
And finally, Human struggle is something we all hold in common, and it can be redeemed for creativity, beauty, healing, restoration, and a reminder of our dignity as human creatures.
With and For is a production of the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. For more information, visit our website, thethrivecenter.org, where you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose. I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of the Thrive Center and our With and For podcast team.
Jill Westbrook is our senior director and producer Lauren Kim is our operations manager. Wren Jeurgensen is our social media graphic designer. Evan Rosa is our consulting producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy.
I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Mona Siddiqui
Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Assistant Principal for Religion and Society, and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh. Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. She’s the author of many books, including Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives,Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name, and My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey. A scholar of theology, philosophy, and ethics, she’s conducted international research on Islam and Christianity, gratitude, loyalty and fidelity, hope, reconciliation and inter-faith theological dialogue, and human struggle. Mona is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life and regularly appears as a media commentator on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day and The Moral Maze. A recipient of numerous awards and recognition, she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, she gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an International Honorary Member. And Dr. Siddiqui was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which is just steps below the highest Knighting—specifically for her public interfaith efforts. To learn more, I’d highly recommend her books, but you can also follow her on X @monasiddiqui7.
Episode Summary
You can’t be moral on your own. That’s a radical idea in this time of moral outrage, but thriving in public life requires a sense of mutual accountability, belonging, and hospitality for each other.
Mona Siddiqui is a professor of religion and society, an author, commentator, and public intellectual, and she suggests that the virtues of loyalty, gratitude, hospitality, and hope can lead us through the common struggle of being human together, living *forward* into a thriving life of public faith and renewed moral imagination.
As Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Assistant Principal for Religion and Society, and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh, she is an international beacon of hope that we might find restoration, hospitality, and flourishing in our world of struggle. Working through questions of loyalty, responsibility, belonging, gratitude, robust faith, and what we owe each other, we can find abundant resources for thriving and spiritual health.
In this conversation with Mona Siddiqui, we discuss:
– What is a moral life?
– The connection between faith, spirituality, and living a moral life of responsibility and integrity
– The difference between cultivating virtuous character and doing justice
– How to thrive in a pluralistic society marked by constant struggle and conflict
– The promise of gratitude and hospitality in a life of thriving
– And how to pursue a hopeful, forward-looking approach to restoration in the wake of harm, loss, pain, and suffering.
Show Notes
Episode Highlights
- "Our moral life only becomes alive when we are in a relationship—you can't be moral on your own."
- "Life is all about searching. Life is all about introspection. Life is all about reflection."
- "The good life is hard; it's not about ease, but about living with accountability and responsibility."
- "Hospitality isn't just welcoming—it's negotiating belonging, loyalty, and a sense of shared life."
- "Gratitude can liberate, but it can also create hierarchies and transactional indebtedness."
- "Hope is not naive optimism—without hope, how do you live, build relationships, or carry forward at all?"
Helpful Links and Resources
- Follow Mona on X (Twitter) at @monasiddiqui7
- *Christians, Muslims, and Jesus,* by Mona Siddiqui
- Human Struggle, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, by Mona Siddiqui
- A Theology of Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, by Mona Siddiqui
- My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey by Mona Siddiqui
- The Moral Maze, BBC Radio 4
Show Notes
- Mona Siddiqui’s personal background in Islamic jurisprudence and public theology
- “I got into Islamic jurisprudence because of personal connection and intellectual curiosity.”
- Navigating public discourse post-9/11 as a non-white, non-Christian scholar
- Importance of pluralism and living within diverse identities
- "I need to create a space that appeals to a wider audience—not just about what I think."
- Growing up with intellectual freedom in a traditional Islamic household
- How faith upbringing seeds lifelong moral introspection
- "You are always answering to yourself—you know when you have not lived rightly."
- Developing comparative theology through seminars with Christian scholars
- Overlapping themes between Islamic and Christian thought on the good life
- The significance of accountability over blanket forgiveness
- "Belonging is crucial to being a good citizen—you can’t flourish alone."
- Exploration of loyalty: loyalty to people vs loyalty to principles
- Civic loyalty and critical engagement with the state
- “Because I feel loyal to my country, I should also be its critic.”
- The role of prayer in cultivating internal moral awareness
- Reflection on virtues: gratitude, loyalty, hope
- The dark sides of gratitude and loyalty in institutions
- Parenting with a focus on integrity, accountability, and faithfulness
- “Live so that whatever you say in public, you can say at home—and vice versa.”
- Emphasis on public engagement: speaking clearly, making complex ideas accessible
- "Radio became a gift—people want complex ideas made simple and meaningful."
- Remaining hopeful despite the culture of outrage and cynicism
- Young people’s resilience and persistent hopefulness
- Hospitality as a fundamental ethic for creating trust and belonging
- Struggle as a normative, transformative experience that shapes flourishing
- "Thriving is not just freedom—it’s centering, writing, speaking, and deep human connection."
- The importance of relationships in thriving and flourishing
- “Most of us realize—relationships are the hardest, but the most rewarding.”
- Redefining gratitude: avoiding transactional gratitude, cultivating authentic gratefulness
- Struggle cultivates introspection, resilience, creativity, and a deeper moral life
- Pam King’s Key Takeaways
- I can’t be moral on my own. But my decisions are my own. In the end, living with integrity means living with virtue.
- Personal and public flourishing are deeply connected to our lives of faith and spirituality; and all of us need to bring the depths of our personal spiritual commitments into public life.
- We can offer hope and freedom from fear to each other when we expand our hospitality to all persons.
- The practice of gratitude in the face of our vulnerability is easier said than done—but is a strengthening response to uncertainty and suffering.
- And finally, human struggle is something we hold in common, and it can be redeemed for creativity, beauty, healing restoration, and a reminder of our dignity as human creatures.
About the Thrive Center
- Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
- Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
- Follow us on X @thrivecenter
- Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter
About Dr. Pam King
Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.About With & For
- Host: Pam King
- Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
- Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
- Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
- Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa
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