ISCA chairman Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani recently met with Michael Young, member of the Religious Freedom Commission of the State Department to discuss the issue of religious freedom abroad. The commission, Mr. Young said, was formed to promulgate the freedom of universal religious principles in the rest of the world.

Mr. Young was very interested in Shaykh Kabbani’s viewpoints on how the commission could demonstrate they are not against Muslims and to share his knowledge of where there are instances of persecution of Muslims. Shaykh Kabbani said education was the key to misrepresentations of what takes place abroad, and that often times, what looks like the government attacking Muslims is not necessarily the case when you look at the specific incidents.

Conceding that it is a problem for the State Department to understand religious conflicts because "they dismiss the religious component," Mr. Young mentioned countries such as France and others that do not allow women to wear head scarves in schools. The U.S. has a broad base of freedom of religion, he said, but it is difficult to get other countries to follow that example.

Interested in hearing Shaykh Kabbani’s perspective on other topics, Mr. Young invited the ISCA chairman to meet with other members of the commission, which issues reports to suggest sanctions against religious freedom violators. He also asked that ISCA help devise a system whereby the intellectual perspective of their advisors can be presented to the commission on a regular basis.