american christians and islam

We were seated on chairs arranged in a circle in the aptly named Hospitality Room, men and women from Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Japan, and the U.S. We were reading the Qur’an. Some were Muslims who many people would not consider Muslim; others were Christians who many people would not consider Christian.

Muslims have been in our town for a while, but the mosque is new. Last spring our church paid a call on our neighbors there.

The Times of Israel reported in early March on a controversy involving Jewish residents of East Jerusalem upset about how loudly a nearby mosque was broadcasting the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer. Amidst all of the problems confronting Israeli and Palestinian society, one might be forgiven for having missed this story. It was only a dispute about noise, after all. 

Yet this was hardly an isolated event.