The Ground of Our Being: Muslim Heritage, Identity and Connectedness – A Personal Reflection

This article is a personal reflection by a Muslim university chaplain regarding Muslim heritage, identity and connectedness among Muslims in Australia. It considers a number of challenges that Muslims face in the Australian community and more specifically within the university and prison contexts. Advocating an Islamic philosophy as being the ideal religion, it presents a Muslim chaplain’s approach to pastoral care practice. A version of this article was first given as a paper presented at the 2015 Spiritual Care Australia national chaplains’ conference and it is supplemented here by a response (also within this edition) from two reviewers who have critically reflected upon the author’s perspective (see Cohen and Duncan in this issue of the journal, pp. 166–73).