What It’s Like to Teach Islam 101 When Anti-Muslim Rhetoric Runs High

Terje Østebø displays a succession of photographs on the screen behind him: a woman holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign. The aftermath of November’s attacks in Paris. The shooters in the San Bernardino rampage. A group of ISIS fighters. He calls on his students to identify the subjects of the images.

Once they correctly name the last one, he makes a little joke. “I thought they were ninjas,” he says. Then he grows serious. “I hate to do this,” Mr. Østebø says, “but we are kind of forced to talk about violence.”

It’s the second week of “Introduction to Islam,” a course Mr. Østebø has taught about once a year since coming here to the University of Florida from his native Norway, in 2010. This week’s topic is “Images of Islam,” and here in the West, many depictions of the world’s second-largest religion are violent.

Mr. Østebø can’t take it for granted that his students have learned even the basics about Islam beforehand. Some may know only what they’ve seen in the media. So before they can gain a better understanding, students must confront those images.

The photos are recent. In the wake of those events, the political rhetoric about Islam has heated up. Before the class begins on a recent Monday afternoon, Mr. Østebø, director of the Center for Global Islamic Studies and an associate professor in religion and the Center for African Studies, describes what has changed. After September 11, 2001, he says, President George W. Bush made a point of saying that the United States was fighting terrorists, not Islam. “He did create a differentiation,” Mr. Østebø says.

The presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, in contrast, called for barring all Muslims from entering the country after the San Bernardino shootings and has said he would track those who are already here. “Donald Trump has kind of erased any kind of distinction,” Mr. Østebø says.

And so the climate for Muslims has devolved. “Muslims are tense,” he says. “The way the rhetoric has shifted makes them want to be more invisible, and they want to be careful in what they say.”

That shift, perhaps, raises the stakes for a course meant to give undergraduates an overview of the religion. Teaching the introductory class is always difficult, Mr. Østebø says, as students come to it with such varied degrees of familiarity with Islam, and many bring misconceptions. But, he adds, it’s also fun.

Which Religion Is Most Violent?

Mr. Østebø scans the room. The seating is auditorium-style, and the students are spread out. There are about 40 of them in the class, he estimates out loud. Mr. Østebø asks them to quickly split into five groups and discuss a prompt he puts up on the screen. They are to rank four religions, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, according to their “propensity for violence.”

The exercise is an experiment, Mr. Østebø tells the students, something he hasn’t tried before. Then he asks each group to hold its answer sheet up on the count of three.

All five groups have selected Buddhism as the religion with the least propensity for violence. Three groups have chosen Christianity as the most violent; the other two have chosen Islam.

Mr. Østebø asks them why.

Students who selected Christianity share their reasons. Inter-Christian fighting, one offers. The Roman Empire, says another. A woman with glasses and long hair says that “colonialism was widely Christian.”

Then Mr. Østebø asks the groups that chose Islam to explain. A student in the first group says it based its answer on current portrayals in the media. “You kind of didn’t address the question, though,” the professor says. “Did you?”

After a pause, the student asks: “How so?”

“What you think is the most violent religion,” Mr. Østebø says, “it’s not wrong — it’s interesting to reflect on.”

Another member of the group jumps in. “Knowing about the different religions,” she says, “I didn’t think that any of them were violent. I just thought there were crazy people in them that were violent.”

Mr. Østebø turns to the last group. Its members cite religious texts as their evidence that Islam is the most violent — a different kind of rationale than their classmates have used. Mr. Østebø zeros in on that difference. Would the others have ranked the religions in the same way if they, too, had been thinking about the texts of those faiths?

It’s hard, says a woman near the front. Jesus wasn’t violent, “but not everybody thinks that Christianity is just about what Jesus said.”

Islam, too, is interpreted in different ways. Many Muslims say that ISIS does not represent Islam, Mr. Østebø says. They believe that “Islam does not condone violence” but is a religion of peace and of justice.

Texts Are Silent

He paces as he lectures, sometimes gesturing with his hands, sometimes putting them in his front pockets. “What do we do with texts that speak of violence, and in the same book we have texts that speak of love, forgiveness, justice, and so on?” The question, Mr. Østebø adds, applies to religions more broadly.

He circles back to the question of texts later on. Mr. Østebø reads the class his favorite quote: “Texts are by themselves silent.” For emphasis, he leans down over a book on the edge of his desk, putting his ear to it. The class laughs.

Then Mr. Østebø puts some statements on the screen: “each of us saw her duck,” “passer-by helps dog bite victims.” Without context, their meaning is uncertain. The same, he says, is true of religious texts, which must be interpreted. That view of texts — common among religion scholars — makes sorting out what other people believe quite a bit more complicated. Not only must students grapple with what scriptures say; they also have to contend with the many different ways believers have understood them throughout the world and over time.

At one point, Mr. Østebø admits to the class that the prompt he gave them was “difficult.” Reflecting on the class later, he goes further: The question he posed was obviously impossible. One religion is not inherently more or less violent than another. Mr. Østebø was therefore pleased that most of his students used the prompt to think through how their own understanding has been shaped by history and media portrayals.

The national conversation about Islam may be politicized and lacking in nuance, but the students can aim higher. If they take one thing from his class, Mr. Østebø tells them, he hopes it will be this: “Things are not that simple.”

Beckie Supiano writes about college affordability, the job market for new graduates, and professional schools, among other things. Follow her on Twitter @becksup, or drop her a line at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.