Faith, Data & Being American Muslim with Dalia Mogahed | Created In The Image of God 245

Public debates about Islam and Muslims in America are usually loud, shallow, and short on facts. Dalia Mogahed has spent much of her life trying to change that. Born in Cairo and raised in the United States, she grew up in a family where high-level scholarship and deep devotion were normal: a grandfather who taught at Al‑Azhar—the “Harvard” of the Muslim world—training women in theology, and a mother who was the only woman in her rocket‑engineering class at Cairo University. As a child, Dalia spent weekdays sleeping at her grandparents’ home while her mother commuted two hours each way to teach, absorbing the Qur’an as the literal “soundtrack” of her days as her grandfather recited whenever he was home.At five, her life shifted dramatically when her parents moved to Madison, Wisconsin on a peace‑grant scholarship that was itself a little‑known clause in the Camp David accords. Suddenly the little girl steeped in Cairo’s rhythms was learning English, trying to fit in, and navigating public schools. In elementary school, international backgrounds were celebrated; by middle and high school, “foreign” started to feel like “other.” The pivot came at fifteen, when she stumbled across The Autobiography of Malcolm X in her school library. Reading it, she discovered that Islam was not an alien presence in America but had helped shape its story, that Muslims had been here since the nation’s beginning, and that there was such a thing as being American Muslim. Malcolm gave her language for an identity she’d been living but couldn’t yet name.From that foundation, Dalia went on to combine her love of faith with a talent for data. As executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and co‑author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, she helped bring rigorous polling and analysis to a conversation too often driven by fear and speculation. Today, as head of Mogahed Consulting and a scholar with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, she advises governments, media, and corporations on Muslim communities and religion in public life—work that has taken her from the Obama White House to testimony before the U.S. Senate and countless media appearances.In this episode, she and Wade return to her story as a lens on bigger questions: how American Muslims actually see themselves; why it matters that Islam has a long history of coexistence with Jews and Christians; how policies, prejudice, and global events have shaped Muslim experience in the U.S.; and what it means, in Islam, to surrender to God’s will while engaging fully in a democratic, pluralistic society. Throughout, Dalia brings the same combination of personal warmth, scholarly depth, and moral clarity that has made her one of the most trusted voices on these issues.For listeners confused by headlines, curious about their Muslim neighbors, or wrestling with how faith fits into a divided public square, this conversation offers something rare: careful facts, lived experience, and a vision of pluralism rooted not in vague tolerance, but in genuine understanding and shared responsibility before God. Get full access to SOOPMedia on Substack at soopllc.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Created in the Image of God at wadefransson.substack.com/subscribe