Book on Quran at center of academic, religious fight
• Islamic , • Religious Intolerance
RALEIGH, N.C. — Brendan Byrne will head 40 miles from home next week to try to broaden his world at North Carolina’s flagship university. He’ll carry a copy of Michael Sells’ “Approaching the Qu’ran: The Early Revelations.”
The book was required summer reading for incoming freshmen and transfer students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
They are supposed to talk about it in discussion groups Monday. State legislators and a conservative policy group are making last-minute efforts to stop them.
Detractors say the 220-page book, which discusses 35 verses from Islam’s holy text, could convert Americans to the religion of terrorists blamed for the deaths of 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Byrne, an 18-year-old practicing Roman Catholic from Raleigh, isn’t as concerned. In fact, he sounds a little bored by the argument.
“If they were trying to lure us into Islam they would have made it something a little more persuasive,” he said. “I think this is more informational. I don’t find it to be threatening at all to any of my beliefs.”
Islamic scholars and university officials have tried to reassure the anxious that the book isn’t a tool for conversion. Still, the state House on Tuesday approved a proposed budget that would cut public money for UNC’s reading program unless it gives equal time to all religions — a largely symbolic stance since the program costs relatively little and the General Assembly is weeks away from passing a final budget.
A more definitive strike could come Thursday, when a federal judge in Greensboro, hearing a lawsuit against the reading requirement, could decide to block Monday’s discussions.
School officials have also asked about 4,200 freshmen and transfer students to write a one-page paper about Sells’ book. It contains commentary on the 35 passages and has a companion CD with audio recitations of several verses in different styles.
Carl Ernst, a professor of Islam at UNC, recommended the book to the selection committee to help students struggling to understand the religion shared by 1.2 billion people.
“I don’t think I would have recommended any other (book) for this kind of educational purpose,” Ernst said. “(Sells is) not approaching it as a preacher, … but he’s approaching it as a text we need to understand.”
Sells estimates that about 70 colleges have used his book, but the text had stirred little mainstream discussion until its selection by UNC.
Now, just mentioning the book in some places can lead to heated discussions on religious freedom, patriotism, church and state separation, academic freedom or bigotry — or all of the above.
Rep. Larry Justus, R-Henderson, the sponsor of the House amendment, said the school stands to lose more than money — it could lose broader support.