Lecturer Hassanin Rajabali discusses the "Good and Evil" prospective of the Islamic religion in Mecham Auditorium Thursday evening. A University of Colorado graduate, Rajabali is known for opening dialouge between religious leaders. Jeremy Dickie/The Daily

Diversity of faith is the spice of life, a lecturer of Islam told students and faculty Thursday evening in Meacham Auditorium.

“God has shown me that even identical twins don’t agree on everything,” lecturer Hassanain Rajabali said. “The disagreement we have as cultures is healthy. The way we approach it is not.”

The lecture, titled “Good vs. Evil from an Islamic Perspective,” was sponsored by the Religious Studies Department and the OU Muslim Student Association.

The lecture’s purpose was to initiate dialogue, as well as discuss good vs. evil in the Muslim world, Rajabali said.

“Evil, by definition, is a consequence of one exercising their own free will to reject the good,” Rajabali said. “Evil is not a natural disaster, birth or death, it is a system God has created to through the advent of free will to challenge us.”

Evil cannot exist outside of free will, Rajabali said. He also said that to do so would imply a partnership with God, which does not exist. He continued to say that God honored mankind with challenges in order to achieve merit.

“If God were to just place us in paradise it would be as if He thought we were not worthy of being challenged,” Rajabali said. “You have to have merit in what you do. Then you will achieve high standards.”

Good, Rajabali said, is everything God sets into motion because God is fundamentally good. He urges the audience to look at the good within the world.

“The goodness that is pervasive in us all is for what we need to focus on,” Rajabali said. “You can be the richest, smartest person in the world, but if you don’t have strong morals you are as hopeless as the next person.”

Rajabali is quick to denounce radical fundamentalism in his lecture, saying the key to Islam is moderation.

“It is clear in the Koran that any such behavior of murder is condemned,” Rajabali said. “People who claim to have inspiration from God to perform evil are either demented or lost in their own world.”

Rajabali emigrated from Tanzania to the U.S. in 1975 to pursue a degree in molecular biology and psychology at the University of Colorado, said Ali Farzena, an alumni mentor to the Muslim Student Association.He is a frequent lecturer on Islam and travels to various universities to do so, Farzena said.

For Jonathan Wille, University College freshman, Rajabali’s candid and often humorous approach was inviting and informative.

“I came to this lecture because I am a religiously curious person,” Wille said. “I may not agree with all of his points, but his points were clear [and I could] decipher them in a way that is meaningful to me.”

Megan Gay, University College freshman, said she attended the lecture to receive extra credit for a class, but she said, “It’s interesting to hear different backgrounds and perspectives to stay informed while taking religious classes.”

Rajabali placed strong emphasis on the negativity that comes out of passing judgement on others different from the general population.

“This world is a world of actions,” Rajabali said. “The next world is a world of judgment. It is not in your domain, so you don’t have a right to pass judgment.”