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Georgetown Professor On Communicating Islam To Americans

Jonathan Brown

Jonathan Brown converted to Islam almost twenty years ago. He's spent much of his adult life studying the history, evolution and scholarship of the religion that claims more than a billion adherents around the world. On Tuesday, October 27, Brown, a Georgetown University professor, delivered the University of Tennessee College of Religious Studies' annual Siddiqi Lecture in Islamic Studies.

Brown is the author of four books exploring various topics in Islamic history. The most recent, Misquoting Muhammad, was released in 2014.

"Muslims are not a group of people you can examine from the outside," Brown told WUOT All Things Considered host Brandon Hollingsworth. "Americans, I think generally, are pretty dismissive about Islam. That's not possible for me."

That desire to learn more about his own faith pushed him into asking deeper, tougher questions about Islam, especially in the United States.

"The big question[s] for me [are], what does the religion of Islam ask of me? Where does religion end and culture begin? What does it mean to be a Muslim in America?" Brown said.

In this extended conversation, Brown talks to Hollingsworth about how economic change in the Muslim world could spur greater freedoms for women, how Muslims and non-Muslims can benefit from studying the religion, and more.