For the first time in 24 years, Algeria will play for the FIFA World Cup title in June. Its road in getting there, however, shall remain one of the most uproarious yet sobering international affairs tales to date.

Slavery is almost as old as human civilization itself. I was taught that one of the main reasons the Children of Israel were decreed to spend 40 years in the desert outside of the Holy Land was to wipe clear all notions of slavery in the generation that had been persecuted under Pharaoh.

Recently, I had found myself avoiding participating in and even attending interfaith events. The usual dance with the same crowd speaking the same rhetoric had dulled me to a point that I no longer found great benefit in their pursuit. Enter the National Cathedral and its historic Christian-Muslim Summit held there earlier this month.

Last week instead of being productive, I was circulating through my iTunes, reminiscing about the first time I had heard each particular song. I clicked through some Michael Jackson, Eminem, Jay-Z, a female soprano voice with a haunting flute playing in the background and an entire repertoire of Metallica. Although I pride my taste as being “cultured,” it’s not as if I consider myself a music connoisseur compared to the average listener. In fact, I’d guess that most of us can appreciate various forms of music, perhaps with tendencies towards one or two genres.

When I was 16 years old and at summer camp, I bunked with an Israeli Jew named Shimœn. We spent three weeks with about eighty other youth in southern Virginia. I was surprised to learn how westernized he was, listening to my genre of music, wearing jeans and T-shirts, speaking English with only a slight accent.

In the last few years, I’ve been forced to accept what I consider to be a stark and harsh reality: Muslims around the world, my fellow adherents of the beautiful religion of Islam, are lamentably falling short in our duties. The caliber of person that gave the modern era the fundamental knowledge of the Roman and Medieval epochs is suddenly difficult to find. Now, the image of a Muslim conjures up expressions akin to strange, backwards, crazy and different.