Omar Suleiman - Human Rights, Faith, and the Border

About this lecture

In this 2019 Annual Human Rights at Duke Lecture, Imam Omar Suleiman draws on his personal experiences as the child of Palestinian refugees, his humanitarian work in Syrian refugee camps, and his activism at the U.S.-Mexico border to build a powerful moral case for how people of faith must respond to the global refugee crisis. Weaving together Islamic teachings on migration, prophetic traditions on human dignity, the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and concrete policy analysis, he challenges audiences to move beyond charity and into sustained advocacy — arguing that the dehumanization at the border is not just a political failure but a spiritual one.