Dutch journalist and Arabist Eildert Mulder is deeply impressed by the book Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din’ [Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn] by the medieval Islamic scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali [Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī] (c. 1058 – 19 December 1111), parts of which have great value for those who wish to understand human interpersonal relations: ten centuries later, it still can be applied to dialogue between people of different cultural backgrounds. Hulsman believes it is good to present Egyptian students with material from their own heritage. This is of course Islamic, but this is also a heritage that affects Egypt’s Christians. The values presented Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī motivated Cornelis Hulsman to ask intern Gurjinder Khambay to interview Eildert Mulder in preparation for the CAWU webinar on Muslim-Christian relations on June 22-24, 2020.  

Eildert Mulder studied Arabic, went to Lebanon (where he was often involved in dialogues between different warring factions in 1980-81), twice as translator with the UNIFIL peace-keeping mission. In 1984, he became a journalist with the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw where he worked until retiring in 2015. Mulder has travelled extensively through the Islamic world, from Morocco to Iran, and India to Indonesia. He wrote for Trouw about the Middle East, Islam, and the multicultural society of the Netherlands. Mulder wrote books about his experiences in Lebanon; the multicultural society in the Schilderswijk, a quarter in The Hague; and a book about the origins of Islam. In 2012, Trouw gave him his own column, “In the Shadow of the Minaret,” comprised of weekly articles of 500 words, often relating unusual anecdotes linked to the Islamic world. These stories often go unreported in the Western media, but show a widely diverse Islamic world. Since retiring, Mulder has been able to devote even more time to these weekly columns.