For two days, an international conference on Islam opens Friday, April 29, in Madison, the United States, with an objective of clearing stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam, highlighting the merciful Islamic tenets and enhancing dialogue and understanding among the different faiths.
Under the theme “Islam and Dialogue”, the International Conference on Islam, held on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, brings together a cohort of senior academics, scholars and researchers from a number of leading US universities to discuss means of consolidating intercultural understanding and shedding more light on the aspects of Islam in American society.
“We need more intercultural, interfaith understanding. In our society we do lack knowledge about Islam and different aspects of it,” said Mustafa Gokcek, a UW-Madison graduate student and one of the conference’s organizers, The Capital Times reported.
Gokcek stressed that one of main goals of the two-day international conference is to show the diversity of the Muslim world and the Islamic cultures. “We tend to see a monolithic Islamic world. People mostly hear about Islam through terrorist events and suicide bombings,” he stressed.
Participants in the international event include professors and scholars from leading US universities such as UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, Harvard, Notre Dame, Marquette, Emory, Northwestern, Boston College, Syracuse, Georgetown and Columbia.