LAGRANGE – Curious to know more about Islam, students at LaGrange College in Georgia gathered on Tuesday, November 1, to hear a lecture from an American Muslim imam, who managed to dispel their fears in minutes and extend bridges of mutual, interfaith understanding.

“You should also know about me that I drive a Cadillac,” Imam Sulaimaan Hamed, the resident Imam at the Masjid of Al-Islam, which is one of the largest and most important mosques in the metro Atlanta area, told students, LaGrange Daily News reported.

“I like hot wings. I listen to Reggae music, and I’m a Muslim. … Islam is my faith, but I’m just a regular person.”

The lecture, held at Dickson Assembly Room at LaGrange College, was mainly attended by students who identified almost unanimously as Christian by show of hands.

Curious to learn more about a faith that has received such mixed reviews in the media, the students were confident in asking questions about Hamed’s faith and life as a Muslim in America.

The imam succeeded in correcting a major misconception that Muslims were out to convert the entire world or force everyone to live under Sharia`h Law.

“I don’t want everybody to be Muslim,” said Hamed.

“I want you to practice your religion that you were born with – remember this is a Muslim talking… – I want you to be a good Christian. I want you to learn the Bible. I want you to follow Jesus, peace be upon him. I want you to follow those models – those great saints – who exemplified how to live like him. That’s what makes Muslims happy.”

Though Muslims have distinctive features of faith, including five prayers a day and Ramadan fasting, the Imam stressed these requirements do not necessarily impede Muslims from having good relations with people of other faiths, like Christians and Jews.

“It’s an obligation – meaning it’s law, and this law is actually written all the way back to Quran, the book of the Muslims and the Prophet Muhamed – one of the first things of the law is if there are people of other faiths living in there, we are obligated to insure the church, you are able to practice your faith as you see fit,” said Hamed. “So there is no mass conversion. When we hear that on the news, these people aren’t Muslims. We actually disqualify them from our religion.”

Protecting the Other

The Imam added that believing in the scripture of the Jewish Torah and Christian Bible is an obligation to Muslims.

In contrast to a major misperception about Muslims, Hamed clarified that Muslims are charged by their faith to protect places of worship that belong to other religions and the people who worship there when they are in places where they have the power to do so.

“We consider ourselves one of the Abrahamic faiths,” said Hamed.

“When we say Abrahamic, we are talking about Abraham – that same prophet that is in the Bible – the father of Isaac and the father of Ishmael, and there was some descendants along the line from Ishmael’s line that came from a person called Mohammed to whom Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed, so we think we are brothers – we think we are sisters in faith – that is what Muslims believe.”

David Ahearn, the Chairman of the Religion and Philosophy Department, stressed the importance of similar meetings to dispel misconception about Islam and Muslims in a very important era in the American history.

“We are really at unique period in our national history,” Ahearn said.

“It is always the case that dominant groups don’t know enough about minority groups, and often we don’t know much about Islam. And so, often we are having to simply fill those holes with ignorance. We are at a special period… in which there is not only a lack of information about Islam, but there is active and calculated misinformation about Islam.”

Ahearn referenced several major groups that promote dangerous misconceptions about Islam including the Americans for Peace and Tolerance non-profit that promotes itself as an organization that advocates “peaceful coexistence in an ethnically diverse America,” but has recently made statements regarding textbooks in New England that the Anti-Defamation League ruled lacking evidence and irresponsible.