Eboo Patel

Patel grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he attended Glenbard South High School.[5] He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his undergraduate studies and earned a degree in Sociology.[6] He has a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Patel details his life and career extensively in his 2007 autobiography, Acts of Faith. In the book, Patel notes that he became interested in religious diversity in college, where he noticed that conversations on multiculturalism and multiple identities did not involve religious identity. After graduating from college, he taught at an alternative education program for high school dropouts in Chicago and, inspired partly by Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement, founded a cooperative living community for activists and artists in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.[5]^:61–69 As an activist, Patel felt that diversity, service, and faith were important parts of civic life but found no community organization that touched on all three, specifically one that worked with young people.[5]^:74 In response, he developed the idea for the Interfaith Youth Core,[7] formulated through his relationship with Brother Wayne Teasdale and blessed by the Dalai Lama, that would bring young people of different faiths together around service and dialogue.[5]^:74

While a student at Oxford, Patel ran numerous interfaith youth projects in India, Sri Lanka, and South Africa.[5]^:123 He officially founded IFYC in 2002 with a Jewish friend and a $35,000 grant from the Ford Foundation.[8] Today the organization employs approximately 30 people and has a $4-million operating budget.[8]

In addition to his work with IFYC, Patel has spoken at numerous college campuses and conferences across the country. Patel and IFYC partnered with White House officials in developing President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, which invited schools across the nation to make interfaith cooperation a campus priority and launched in 2011.[8] His second book, Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, was released in August 2012.

• Patel has blogged for The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and Sojourners, among other outlets.
• He is on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation
• He was on the Advisory Board of Duke University Islamic Studies Center.[9]
• Patel is an Ashoka Fellow,[10] part of a select network of social entrepreneurs.
• He is serving as Dominican University's Lund-Gill Chair in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences for fall 2011.[11]
• Patel serves on the Department of Homeland Security’s Faith-based Advisory Council
• He has spoken at TED (conference), the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Nobel Peace Prize Forum
• He wrote "We Are Each Other's Business".

• Sandor Teszler Award for Moral Courage and Service to Humanity, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, March 5, 2013
• 2012 Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize, 2012
• Honoree at Union Theological Seminary (New York)’s 175th Anniversary, 2012
• Named to 100 Most Powerful Chicagoans List by Chicago (magazine), 2012
• Named to the “YES! Breakthrough 15” List by YES! Magazine, 2011
• Named to the “Top 50 Power and Influence” List by The NonProfit Times, 2011
• Feature article in The New York Times, “An Effort to Foster Tolerance in Religion,” 2011
• University of Illinois Outstanding Asian-American Alumni Award, 2010
• Common Ground Award given by Search for Common Ground, 2010
• University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, 2010
• Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum, 2010
• Roosevelt Institute’s Freedom of Worship Medal (with Interfaith Youth Core), 2009
• Stanford University Muslim American Contribution Award, 2009
• Named one of Islamica Magazine's 10 young Muslim visionaries shaping Islam in America
• Named one of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report, 2009
• Named a “Future Policy Leader” by Harvard Kennedy School Review, 2008
• David Kellum award from the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette for service to youth, 2005
• Ashoka Foundation Fellow, 2004
• Prime Mover/Hunt Fellow, 2004
• Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, 2003

• DePaul University, June 16, 2013[12]
• Claremont Lincoln University, May 21, 2013[13]
• Doctor of Humanities, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, March 5, 2013
• Colgate University, 2012[14]
• Dominican University (Illinois), 2012
• Illinois Institute of Technology, 2011
• Loyola University Chicago, 2010[15]
• Elmhurst College, 2009
• Washington & Jefferson College, 2008

• Eboo Patel (2018). Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-6911-8272-8.
• Eboo Patel (2016). Interfaith Leadership: A Primer. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807033623.
• Eboo Patel (2012). Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-7748-1.
• Eboo Patel (2010). Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (new ed.). Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-0622-1.
• Eboo Patel and Adam Davis (2009). Hearing the Call Across Traditions: Readings on Faith and Service. Skylight Paths Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59473-264-5.
• Eboo Patel (2007). Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-7727-6.
• Eboo Patel (2006). Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action.

• "PROFILE: Eboo Patel". Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. November 30, 2007. Retrieved 2009-02-06.
• Sabahat Adil. "- Eboo Patel — The Bridge Builder". Islamica Magazine (19).
• https://web.archive.org/web/20090211145215/http://ifyc.org/about_core/staff, Bio at IFYC
• "Biography: Eboo Patel". The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Archived from the original on 2009-02-09.
• https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989625 Eboo Patel on This I Believe - NPR, Nov. 7, 2005.
• https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12098469 Eboo Patel on Talk of the Nation - NPR, July 19, 2007.
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Eboo Patel from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Morning Chai: Ismailis in the News - Eboo Patel named to Obama Inter Faith Council Ismailis in the News - Eboo Patel named to Obama Inter Faith Council