Wednesday, October 31, 2001

A Georgia Professor's Web Site on Islam Attracts New Attention By BROCK READ "Islam literally means surrender, implying surrender to God. And a Muslim, literally, is one who is surrendering," writes Alan Godlas, an associate professor of religion at the University of Georgia, in the introduction to his Web site devoted to Islamic studies. The Web site is a comprehensive collection of links and resources documenting Islam's history, orders, and sacred texts, as well as information on its place in the modern world, its stance on women's rights, its art and architecture, and its history of mysticism. Mr. Godlas has maintained the site since 1997, but the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have given it unprecedented popularity. The premise of the Web site is straightforward: Mr. Godlas scours the Internet for informative articles and resources and divides them into categories like "Islam and AIDS," "Liberal, Post-Liberal, and Progressive Islam," and "Sufism, Sufis, and Sufi Orders: Islamic Mysticism." Two types of links make the cut, he says -- primary-source material from Islamic Web sites that highlight the religion's own viewpoints, and scholarly research on the subjects. "It is one of my general purposes to give a balanced viewpoint," Mr. Godlas says. A section on Islam in Afghanistan includes links to Web sites and articles supporting the Taliban, details of the United States' and United Nations' past plans to undermine the country's fundamentalist government, and an academic paper on the nation's future. Finding useful resources online can be a challenge, according to Mr. Godlas. "There isn't a whole lot of academic material on the Web. I think scholars have been a little slow to publish online," he says. But the quality of the material, he says, has improved greatly since he founded the site: "There's gradually been a nice number of pieces coming in." The influx of Islam-related materials has allowed him to include some further-flung links, including a sizable section on the mystical tradition of Sufism, his area of concentration, and even a Web site showing the prayer ritual of the Muslim folk-rock musician Richard Thompson. Mr. Godlas found that site because it featured a link to his own page. Several college professors have used the Web site to augment courses on Islam, including Amir Hussain, an assistant professor of religious studies at California State University at Northridge. In courses about Islam and contemporary religious thought, Mr. Hussain has often directed his students to the site and used videos from it to demonstrate Islamic practices. Mr. Godlas's is "far and away the best Web site for the study of Islam in North America," Mr. Hussain says. "It's comprehensive without being overwhelming." Although academics have known about the site for some time, the September 11 attacks spurred much greater general interest. In the wake of the attacks, Mr. Godlas posted a number of responses from Muslim organizations and scholars, including comments made available by the American Academy of Religion's Study of Islam Section, on whose steering committee he serves. The responses -- and the general information he has collected -- attracted attention. In the past, an average of 250 people would visit the site every day, Mr. Godlas says. Now -- aided by prominent links to it from the Web sites like National Geographic's -- the daily total is in the low thousands. Mr. Godlas tracks his visitors and says that a significant number of visitors log on from Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He has also heard from journalists seeking background on Islamic traditions. "It's been a vehicle that has attracted the press," he says of the site. "I got a call from The Wall Street Journal when they did an article about Muslims shaving their beards so as not to stand out." Before the Internet became a widely used information tool, reporters would have looked to scholars who had published multiple books on Islam; now, he says, "they'll just put 'Islam' into a search engine and e-mail the owners of the pages" they find. "One of the positive things that has come out of this crisis is that the American public's interest in finding out about Islam has skyrocketed," Mr. Godlas says. "Because of this particular event, and now especially our mobilization militarily, it's crucial for people to understand the difference between militant extremism in the name of Islam and Islam per se. And to the degree that people don't understand that [distinction], Muslim-Americans in particular will receive the brunt of any prejudice that derives from that misunderstanding." At the same time, he says, response to his work has been overwhelmingly supportive. "Right away I received two negative e-mails," one of which appears in the Web page's guestbook, "but after that everything has been so positive -- people expressing gratitude for the diverse information I have on Islam, people also asking what they can do to help make Americans more aware that Islam is not the enemy." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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