The Michigan Review

October 23rd, 2007

Islam Awareness Week Kicks-off

Today was the first day of the U-M Muslim Student Association’s Islam Awareness Week. A series of events this week, including having group members on the Diag this week to answer questions and clear up misconceptions about their faith, hopes to “battle ignorance about this religion.” Every night this week the group will be sponsoring events on issues from Hip hop and religion to Muslim women and minorities.

In the first event of the week Professor Ralph Williams of the Department of English, who served as the Director of the Program on Studies in Religion from 96 to 99, spoke about the connections between the Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Speaking before a crowd of about 100 people in Hutchins Hall, Williams tried to envision ways that religions could coexist.
Williams began by explaining that interest in Islam is quite new, referring to his interactions with the religion while growing up in Canada as “sketchy.”

” It is only here in the West in recent years, and out of contestation, that there has been increased interest in understanding Islam,” said Williams. In the first section of his speech, Williams reminded listeners of what these three monotheist religions share. He gave the example of the role that Isa(an Islamic term for Jesus) plays in Islam. He explained that Muslims do believe in Jesus as a prophet. Many Christians find this offense and recognize a “problem of the just,” where constructing Jesus as “just” a prophet attempts to undercut their beliefs.

“Each of these religions sees itself as a revelation from God. Each believes itself to be right and the others to be wrong,” he continued. These exclusive claims to truth makes religions unwilling to compromise.

“Yet we are in America and the genius of democracy is compromise,” said Williams, pointing out that religion can pose problems when it tries to impose itself in law. Arguing that the US has never been a country associated with any religious movement, he instead indicated that religious faith can be “an offering to civic understanding.”

Williams concluded, as he has done elsewhere, by looking with hope to younger generations. “You cannot live what you cannot imagine,” he said calling on his audience to envision new means of religious tolerance. These comments were directed generally, proposing tolerance for Muslims, Christians, Jews, Atheists, etc.  Much of the latter section of the speech hailing the “American Project” strayed from discussing Islam singularly and instead tackled it as one of many belief systems that Williams envisions coexisting in the American public space.

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