Adherents of Islam – estimated at more than a billion people, or about one-fifth of humanity – have too often been misunderstood, stigmatized and marginalized by the non-Islamic world, say three scholars based in Ithaca. By introducing Westerners to their religion’s underlying principles of justice, they hope to bridge huge gaps in understanding and respect. Their vehicle for crossing that bridge is a new book.

Nimat Hafez Barazangi, a visiting fellow in the Women’s Studies Program at Cornell University; M. Raquibuz Zaman, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Finance and International Business at Ithaca College; and Omar Afzal, a Southeast Asia assistant at Cornell University Library, are the editors of Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice (University Press of Florida, 1996), a hard-cover collection of essays on concepts of justice in Islam and how they compare with those of Christianity and Judaism.

The book evolved from papers delivered at a three-day Cornell conference in 1987 that was cosponsored by Cornell United Religious Work, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy and several Cornell academic departments.

“Although the Quran [Koran] and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad . . . have given Muslims a general understanding of Judaism and Christianity,” Barazangi writes in the preface, “Jews and Christians usually have little, if any, knowledge about Islam. Perhaps this lack of knowledge, combined with a history of religious warfare between the Christians and the Muslims, has reinforced the conflict and mistrust shared by Muslims and the non-Muslim West.

“In this book we hope to foster a better understanding among the followers of the three monotheistic revealed religions,” she writes, “particularly about religious teachings and practices that concern individual and social conducts of behavior.”

When asked to state his goal for the book, Zaman said it “is a catalyst for dialogue and understanding. In this day and age, when discussion about any religion centers around terrorism and abortion rights, among other negatives, it is useful to re-examine the basic teachings of the religions with respect to justice and fair play.”

Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice has two parts. “Justice: The Ideals” includes essays on “The Islamic Concept of Justice,” written by Temple University professor of Islamic studies Mahmoud Ayoub; “A Christian Understanding of Justice,” by the late Rev. Byron Lee Haines; and “The Concept of Justice in Judaism,” by Laurence Edwards, Cornell’s Jewish chaplain.

“Rarely does one find a discourse on the subject of concepts of justice in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, especially in a single text, written by scholars of the three religions,” Zaman said.

Part Two, “Justice: The Reality,” addresses the discrepancy between principle and practice that persists in many contemporary Muslim countries, as well as the trend by many Muslim leaders to narrow that divide.

“A number of Muslim countries claim to be Islamic states,” Zaman writes in an essay on economic justice, “yet in reality few nations comprehensively observe Shari’ah (Islamic jurisprudence).” He then describes progress that countries like Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have made in recent years to institutionalize Shari’ah.

For many Western readers, Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice will be the first place they encounter discussions of figures like Muammar al-Qaddafy and the Ayatollah Khomeini in the context of justice, or the Quran in the context of feminism.

In her essay on gender justice, Barazangi argues that the basic principle in the Quranic view of Islamic justice is equality between the sexes, but says inequality in the community and the family often prevents women from realizing their Islamic identity.

In an essay on the development of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Ali A. Mazrui, the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus at Cornell University and Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Binghamton University, presents another argument seldom heard in the mainstream media: that the United States has helped Israel and South Africa gain nuclear capability while remaining staunchly opposed to nuclear proliferation in the Muslim world.

But while volatile issues are addressed in their book, Barazangi, Zaman and Afzal do not perceive it as controversial.

“I do not see anything controversial about the book,” Zaman said.  “Of course, there are people who do not like anyone else’s interpretation of matters related to religion except their own.” Afzal concurred, though he acknowledged that some of the book’s contributors “have touched upon subjects which are interpreted differently among the traditionalists and the modernists.”

Barazangi, Zaman and Afzal envision the book being used not only in classes on Islamic studies and comparative religion, but by anyone interested in the Middle East and Muslims generally.

The editors bring very different perspectives to their book. Barazangi, a native of Syria who received her Ph.D. from Cornell in 1988, specializes in curriculum and instruction in Arabic and Islamic studies and is conducting research on the education of Muslim women. She was a visiting fellow at Oxford University from 1993 to 1994 and is currently on a three-year Fulbright scholarship to Syria, which involves developing an interactive, multimedia computerized curriculum for Arabic.

Afzal, long active in the Muslim minority community in his native New Delhi, India, has written several books and articles on Muslim history, society and culture. Zaman, a native of Bangladesh who received his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1969, chairs the Department of Finance and International Business at Ithaca College and has worked as a consultant to the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

They represent a growing number of scholars in the United States seeking to educate Westerners about Islam in all its facets, they said.

“Several scholars have written, lectured and given workshops about the concept of justice in Islam and how it is different than the stereotypes,” Barazangi said. But, she added, “people still rely very much on the general stereotypes and, unfortunately, certain events that happen in the United States and around the world.”

But she is optimistic that the bridge of misunderstanding and mistrust between Muslims and non-Muslims can be crossed.  “I always have faith in people,” Barazangi said. “If you present a concept in a clear way, human nature is always capable of making sense of it.”

They represent a growing number of scholars in the United States seeking to educate Westerners about Islam in all its facets, they said.

“Several scholars have written, lectured and given workshops about the concept of justice in Islam and how it is different than the stereotypes,” Barazangi said. But, she added, “people still rely very much on the general stereotypes and, unfortunately, certain events that happen in the United States and around the world.”

But she is optimistic that the bridge of misunderstanding and mistrust between Muslims and non-Muslims can be crossed. “I always have faith in people,” Barazangi said. “If you present a concept in a clear way, human nature is always capable of making sense of it.”