In Focus | Engaging with Islam

Why did three students from the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies program form an independent study group to study Islam? Because study leads to understanding, and understanding leads to acceptance, says Said Bilani, one of the students. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam “are all Abrahamic religions,” he says. “The common ground among these three religions is far more profound, far greater, than the differences.” Here, Said, fellow student Wesley Hughes, and faculty member and religion scholar Joseph Jenson, Ph.D., talk to Liberal Studies Program Director Jonathan Henry about the importance of learning, understanding, and coming together—not just in times of tragedies, like the recent terrorist attacks on each of these faiths, but every day as a way of living in the 21^st century.