R-E-S-P-E-C-T:

I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, a Latter-day Saint in particular, and one incurably interested in faith generally. Joseph Smith encouraged us to "get all the good in the world" and to "receive truth, let it come from whence it may." One of those sources for me in 2021 is Islam. I've had important interactions with this faith over the years, including attendance at a lecture in Salt Lake City from Imam Yasir Butt, hearing a speech from Imam Khalid Latif of New York University, and visiting Jerusalem where I frequently heard the muezzin's enchanting calls to prayer.

Consistently, apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ have encouraged Latter-day Saints to better understand both similarities and differences between our faith and Islam. For instance, in October 2021 Elders David A. Bednar and Gerrit W. Gong introduced a forthcoming pamphlet designed to help Muslims and Latter-day Saints do just that. "The two faiths are different in many of our core doctrines, but many of our values and the ways in which we practice our respective faiths are similar and reflect our love of God and of our fellow man," Elder Bednar said. Elder Gong added that learning about our Muslim friends "will help us be more kind and more accurate in what we say and feel about each other."

Imam Butt of Utah's Noor Masjid congregation told me and a small group of listeners that he could speak to us all day about the delights of strawberries. But without tasting one we would never know how delicious a strawberry is. That's how it is with the Qur'an, he said. We must read the book to experience its goodness.

With that motivation, the Qur'an and a collection of hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) are part of my morning devotional readings. I recognize, as Rachel Pieh Jones has written, that "there is no single Islam, and Muslims across the globe are not a monolith." What I've read and experienced tells me that Islam is beautiful. The Qur'an is a delight. The hadith can be illuminating. In the light of these readings, my soul expands. So many of these books' sacred passages have enlightened my mind in unique ways, giving me more tools to live a better life.

Beauty comes not only from the texts' obvious truths but also in moments of clarity revealed in doctrinal differences.

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