Recently I had the opportunity to spend some valuable time with Professor Akbar S. Ahmed and three amazing young American students who are accompanying him on a journey across the Muslim world, to find out, among other things, who speaks for Islam today. The lesson I walked away with from my interaction with the professor and his research team is that bridges are being built on both sides of the Muslim-American divide, and that there are forces working for good despite all the difficulties that the relationship between both sides faces today.

Akbar Ahmed, scholar and author and eminent expert on the Muslim world, is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and professor of international relations at American University. Previous incarnations have seen him as the Pakistani High Commissioner to London, the creator of the Jinnah Suite – a feature film, book, documentary and graphical novel on the life of the Quaid – author of many important books on Islam, and the creator of a multifaith dialogue with Christians and Jews in America, an initiative which has earned him both accolades and death threats. Never one to shy away from a challenge, the professor’s latest brainchild is a project on Islam in the Age of Globalization, an in-depth look into how technology and the interactions of civilizations are affecting the practice and cultural traditions of Islam.

According to a press release on the project, “Islam in the Age of Globalization recognizes the dual challenges the United States faces in its relations with the Muslim world and in addressing the role of religion in twenty-first century world politics. It will explore the question of ‘Who speaks for Islam?’ in an era of globalization. That is, the research project will examine how authority within Islam is legitimated in the modern Muslim world; how leaders establish their authority, especially in relation to divine texts; public reception of leaders claiming to speak for divine texts; and the effect of such issues on politics and policy”.

A lunch was held in honor of Professor Ahmed and his team with thirty people in attendance, including one of Pakistan’s most important journalists; the former governor of Sindh, the Minister of Education for Sindh, and other eminent thinkers and intellectuals who are closely interested in Islam and the West, as well as the ramifications of this project. It was heartening to hear Professor Ahmed speak so engagingly to his audience about the project that he has taken on with the same passion as his previous ones: sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Brookings Institution, and American University’s School of International Service, the project aims to find out how Muslims think in the age of globalization; who speaks for Muslims, how technology affects them, and who is being afforded legitimacy in Muslim leadership today.

Professor Ahmed and his team are traveling from Jordan to Syria, Qatar, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia to ask these questions of students, mainstream Muslims, political and religious leaders; men and women, old and young alike. The primary tool of investigation is a questionnaire distributed amongst people all across the Muslim world; a book, several research reports, and a documentary based on their eight-week whirlwind trip will emanate from the team’s findings, all of which promise to be incredibly rich and exciting.

The younger team members also spoke about their aspirations, inspirations, and expectations on this life-changing journey. Frankie Martin, a college senior from Washington DC, Hailey Woldt, a young student from Texas, and Hadia Mubarak, a Syrian American graduate student all spoke about what they were learning and experiencing, and how incredible they were finding their voyage to the Muslim world. For Martin and Woldt, it was their first time here; Woldt is only 19 and her parents were suitably horrified out when they found out she was going to travel the Muslim world and stay in the Marriott, the hotel that was the target of a suicide bombing hardly a week before their arrival! But not even terrorism could stop these intrepid young people from coming over to discover Islam for themselves and serve as ambassadors of their country to Muslim ones, who desperately need the kind of understanding and awareness that such a project will create.

The three students spoke so confidently and so eloquently despite their youth and previous lack of exposure to Islam and Muslims that everyone in attendance couldn’t help but be impressed with their enthusiasm and their courage. Woldt described emotional moments in her trip: wanting to pray at the tomb of St. John the Baptist in Syria and not being able to find place amongst all the Muslim women crying for him, and receiving a shawl blessed by the Grand Mufti of Damascus. Martin offered analytical observations about how people in different countries had different role models – Pakistan was the first country where Osama Bin Laden showed up as a major Muslim role model, rather than the Middle East – and also described the warmth and acceptance of Muslims he had encountered, and the interest with which the project was being received. Mubarak, the only Muslim woman on the team, spoke movingly about her journey back to Syria, which she had left when she was only a child, and the sense of cultural displacement that she hoped could be overcome by initiatives such as this one, for her personally and for millions of Muslim Americans like her in the United States.

Martin observed that negative feelings against Muslims in America run very high today, but he also pointed that Muslims have suffered a great trauma since 9/11, and that they feel keenly the loss of dignity and honor in the West’s dealings with them. Woldt noted that Americans must learn to respect Muslims but also Muslims must respect Americans. This struck me as particularly truthful, given that Muslims tend to see themselves as the victims of Western oppression, and often forget that respect and honor are a two-way street, both of which must be given generously in order to be earned, even in the case of those who we consider to be our adversaries.

The audience, which consisted of people who are well acquainted with the West, experienced with politics, and jaded by both these perspectives, were so impressed with these young people that applause, smiles, and even teary eyes greeted the students at the end of the talk. Professor Ahmed rightfully named them as rising stars and ambassadors representing all that is good and wonderful about their country. An audience member, Abbas Bilgrami, raised a fascinating point that the revival of Islam was going to come from the West, not the East, and the work that Akbar Ahmed is doing with this team could easily be seen as proof of that fact.

If more young Americans like these, who are so open-minded and courageous, and more authorities from Islam such as Akbar Ahmed are able to step forward as voices of reason in a time of chaos and outright lunacy, then there truly is hope that the rift between our two worlds can be mended, and that a greater global understanding can come about as a result of the groundbreaking work in the area of multicultural dialogue. We should all pray for a positive outcome to this project and a safe journey to all these ambassadors of peace, so that they may bring enlightenment to both sides of the spectrum, and illustrate the fact that the conflict between the West and the Muslim world is a false one. I for one am convinced that one day understanding and tolerance can be cultivated in far greater quantities on both sides of the divide than ever before.