06/05/99

By Laurie Fox / The Dallas Morning News

Seminary student Alan Reed thought he had a pretty good idea about Islam and Muslims before he began taking classes designed to teach him about the faith.

He soon found out that he had a lot more to learn.

"We can't put Islam in a box," said Mr. Reed, a sophomore at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. "There are different ethnic groups in the faith, but they have many similarities to Christianity. Realizing my misconceptions and generalizations was the first step."

Mr. Reed and about 20 other students at the seminary are part of a summer institute designed to educate students and others about Islamic history and how Christians can better relate to Muslim neighbors.

"We think that people should be educated about all types of faiths," said Dr. Samuel Shahid, director of the seminary's Islamic Studies program. "Our students and all Christians encounter Muslims every day. If we encounter them with ignorance or preconceived ideas, it's stressful for everyone.

"We shouldn't shy away from talking about our differences. Respect comes from knowledge."

Part of the impetus behind such programs is curiosity about the growing number of Muslims in the United States and worldwide. Another part is the impulse to evangelize. Such programs help Christians learn the beliefs of people they'd like to see converted.

Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., said that while he welcomes increased relations with Christians, he views educational efforts with a discerning eye.

"We have to examine each individual circumstance on its own merit," he said. "We're all for teaching about the Muslim faith, but we need to make sure that Christians teaching us about their faith keep in mind that we don't want to be converted."

Dr. Bob Garrett, director of the World Missions Center at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, said both faiths can exchange ideas without losing sight of their own beliefs.

"There was a lot of skepticism 50 years ago about one another's faiths, but people's minds are becoming more open to other ideas," he said. "Islamic prejudices toward Christians can be just as large as ours against them. We want to be clear about how deeply affirming we are about our Christianity.

"We unapologetically believe that we should share the gospel, but that doesn't mean we have to try to change anyone's mind."

Dr. Shahid is a Christian of Middle Eastern descent. In his classes, he said, he first seeks to dispel some of the most common myths about Islam: "Not all Muslims are terrorists,as much as not all Christians are killers, and not all of them are Middle Eastern."

Movies and the media have helped craft many Christians' opinions of Muslims, and many opinions are false, Dr. Shahid said.

"In our relationships with Muslims, we have to be objective," Dr. Shahid told his students during his Islamic history class, the second of four classes in the summer institute. "If not, we're the losers."

The classes at the Fort Worth seminary are only one example of a growing movement nationwide to help build bridges between Christians and Muslims, experts said.

Across the country, mosques are opening their doors to Christians, and Christians are seeking ways to reach out to Muslims - either for education or evangelism.

Dr. John L. Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said that bookstores and many mainstream publishers now are carrying books about Islam.

Some believe, he said, that the roughly 6 million Muslims in the United States already have surpassed Jews, making Islam the second-largest religion in this country. Knowing that, Dr. Esposito said, brings the Muslim faith and the Islamic culture into sharper focus.

"People used to associate Muslims with foreigners, but today Muslims are no more foreign than Christianity and Judaism," Dr. Esposito said. "The challenge for Americans is that Muslims are now their neighbors. Once we, as Westerners, come to understand Islam as part of our landscape, we should look at them as shared believers.

"For many Americans, this is becoming a dawning reality."

Dr. Charles Kimball, chairman of the religion department at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., said that while there is a growing awareness in the United States about Muslims, much of what people may think they know is faulty.

"A large majority of people think about Islam with certain presuppositions," said Dr. Kimball, who has studied Muslim-Christian relations for 25 years. "It's not like learning from nothing. A lot of it is doing away with what people think they already know. Progress is not always defined as a step forward.

"In the case of Christians approaching Muslims and trying to understand the religion accurately, we need to examine our attitudes first."

Dr. Kimball said many Americans' views of Muslims are tainted by plane hijackings, hostage-taking and the World Trade Center bombing.

"There's no question people from all religions and nations are performing violent acts, but the vast majority of Muslims are as horrified by these actions as Americans are," he said. "It's encouraging that we're trying to make more of an effort to understand those distinctions."

Nabil Elibiary, a trustee with the Islamic Association of North Texas and imam at the Islamic Association of Carrollton mosque, chuckles when he considers some of the prejudices toward his faith.

"People hear us use the word Allah, and they think we worship a different God," he said. "But we just use the Arabic word, as do many other countries. That is one of the largest issues for us to explain."

David Saine, a missionary who is attending the summer institute in Fort Worth, said that he and many of his classmates thought Muslims worshiped the prophet Mohammed as a god. And most of the students, he said, are somewhat overwhelmed by the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

"Many Christians could take a lot of information from classes like this," said Mr. Saine, who will travel to the predominantly Muslim Ivory Coast next year with his wife. "The distinctions between the faiths aren't as drastic as I thought."

Mr. Elibiary said he has opened his mosque to Christians who are curious about Islam, and he said he receives regular invitations to speak to Christian groups.

"This is long overdue communication," he said. "There is a taboo in some people's minds that they can't talk about religion. I was once told never to talk to Americans about politics or religion. But I love to talk about Islam."

Mr. Hooper said that because a Muslim can be your dentist or bus driver, there's more opportunity to start dialogue.

"As the Muslim community grows and matures, this type of dialogue is happening more often," he said. "Whether Muslims want to or not, they have to engage with the larger community. There's a tremendous curiosity about Islam out there, and we welcome the interaction. We wish more people would ask."