Saaliha Khan, 19, is a sophomore at Georgetown University and an antidote to cynicism. The New Jersey-born and Karachi-raised Muslim woman moved with her family to Los Angeles shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, where she learned to patch together each of her identities in a uniquely American way. Khan serves on the executive board of the university’s Muslim Student Association, is a Georgetown Diversity Fellow with the campus ministry, and somehow found a seat at President Obama’s table at August’s White House Iftar meal celebrating the close of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. She sat down with The Washington Examiner to share thoughts on her deeply held faith, and the hopes it inspires for her generation’s future. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?

I am a Muslim — an American Pakistani Muslim. There’s so much I appreciate about it — it inspires me to be humble, grateful, compassionate, kind, loving and forgiving. These are all characteristics that Allah and his prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, embody — and I try to emulate them. I appreciate that Islam focuses on the importance of intention, and having positive intentions in all that you do. It’s similar to seeing God in all that you do, which is a Jesuit concept we see here at Georgetown. To have a God-consciousness, from day to day and task to task, is something I try to carry with me.