As a trained physician, professor, and a social justice scholar, Ans Irfan (he/him, they/them) holds a commitment to health equity and religious literacy that is both personal and professional: “If my dignity—and the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community—is up for reelection every two to four years, depending on someone’s religious views, how is public health not talking more about the role religion plays in policymaking?” In this Q&A, Irfan defines the importance of centering those who have been marginalized and the urgent need for more religious literacy in policymaking.
HDS: Can you tell us about your roles as a faculty member at the University of Southern California and as a Religion and Public Health Fellow at HDS?
Irfan: I teach about racial, social, and health equity—specifically related to the intersecting issue of climate justice. The courses I have developed explore how we can rethink our collective existence in the climate crisis through an abolition lens. My research infuses social equity into climate innovation from its inception in philanthropic and governmental funding allocations. Another project explores global health systems strengthening from a decolonial climate resilience lens to center the margins.
At HDS I’m a Religion and Public Health Fellow exploring how religious literacy can lend its framework grounded in justice and equity to strengthen public health practices, while engaging with scholars and practitioners operating within the broader stage of global public health.
HDS: How did you find your way to Divinity School?
Irfan: My childhood in Pakistan with a farming family in a small village shaped my professional calling. From a young age, I saw communities around me experience the challenges posed by water scarcity leading to lower crop yields and witnessed the resulting economic and community level instability, largely provoked by British colonial disintegration of the local centuries-old sustainable structures. The crown’s restructuring (compounded by contemporary calamities of capitalism and climate change) continues to inform who lives and who dies. This context, along with Western imperialism, grounds my scholarship and teaching.
I went to medical school because my parents wanted me to...but I fell in love with public health! Its multidisciplinary nature and collective orientation brought me joy. I shifted to health equity when I saw how climate change, forced migration, and inaccessibility to health care intersect with social justice (or the lack thereof). For example, because of American militarism and imperial powers fighting over each other, Pakistan was one of the largest refugee-hosting countries for Afghan refugees. Early on I got to conduct “under the radar” work around sex education with male sex workers who were forced into that situation by consequence of the neocolonial systems of violence that see Black and brown people as disposable “collateral damage” in the liberal apologetics of these atrocities.
Divinity school happened after moving to the U.S., when I noticed people’s misconception of living in a secular policy ecosystem. In my view, religion is always operating in some shape or form, and a nuanced understanding can help us move beyond binary thinking. These unquestioned ontological assumptions were exacerbated by what I see as an intellectual arrogance within the scientific community that dismisses religion, ultimately hindering a broader understanding of our shared existence and religion’s potential to promote health equity and climate justice. On a personal note, as an atheist for most of my life, I was also “flirting with faith” and looking to reconnect with my Muslim roots—especially when it comes to reconciling that with my sexual and gender identity.
“I teach about racial, social, and health equity—specifically related to the intersecting issue of climate justice. The courses I have developed explore how we can rethink our collective existence in the climate crisis through an abolition lens.”
HDS: What is something you’d like to share about the importance of religious literacy?
Irfan: In the not-too-distant future, I believe that public health will look back, reevaluate their paradigms, and think, “How did we ever develop anything in public health without considering religious literacy?” I’m reluctant to define religion, because it should be a constant conversation. However, intellectual arrogance has led significant actors in the policy world to dismiss religion altogether as a primitive set of beliefs, as nonscientific, framing it in a negative light alone. Yet, they don’t stop to question the very notion of objective science and its genealogy. Science, at some point, defined me as mentally ill because of whom I love. By creating awareness about the danger of dismissing religion—as well as the power of harnessing religion as a force for good—the entire field of public health could be transformed.
HDS: What were some of the big lessons you learned at HDS?
Irfan: One of the biggest lessons I learned was the necessity to engage with religion and all its complexity. In the policy world, outside of HDS, I have run into highly intellectual leaders with PhDs who simply reject the entire concept of religion—dismissing it as an archaic system and/or an entity that exists in isolation from the state. Yet religion does affect policymaking. On any given day, a religiously informed agenda could take away my community’s rights, restrict deeply personal decisions made between a doctor and patient, or create harmful barriers to health care. And the public conversations seem to be getting more divisive...by either dismissing religion’s role in policy or leaning into narrow personal beliefs at the expense of others.
From my perspective, we need to engage from the viewpoint that religion can be a force for good for LGBTQIA+ folks and other marginalized communities. For example, my home country, Pakistan, passed one of the most progressive transgender protection rights bills several years ago using religion as a justification—declaring that it was Islam’s role to protect those at the margins. That bill is now facing scrutiny from a small subset of the population with a more restrictive interpretation of religion, but, as Dr. Angela Davis says, “freedom is a constant struggle.” It is my hope that religious literacy and ethical leadership can help us work toward freedom for all.
—by Melín A. Sotiriou Droz, MTS '23
A Week in the Life
MONDAY
Teaching, meetings*, and faculty governance
TUESDAY
Writing, pedagogical governance, student mentoring
WEDNESDAY
Teaching, more meetings, and research mentoring
THURSDAY
Advisory boards, office hours with students
FRIDAY
(When possible) tech-free time to focus on my research and reading
SATURDAY
Writing without meetings, reading/cooking/hiking/connecting with loved ones to unwind
SUNDAY
Catching up on work and volunteer commitments (without meetings)!
*With bi-coastal appointments, Dr. Irfan’s meetings are scheduled between the hours of 5am–9pm (PST) to accommodate different time zones.