re was the feeling left by 9/11 in the mind of this American. However, it was decided to adopt a critical attitude toward what Sue and Sue refer to as cultural racism, or the tendency to judge a culture that is "other," based on my own Greek Orthodox religious practice and whatever "monoculturalism" I may exhibit as a white American. I recognized that it was possible that, as an individual, I had internalized the distinctive religious expression of my own faith and national backgrounds as a superior kind of cultural expression (Sue & Sue, 2003; Sue, et al., 1999). But allowing for that pitfall made it easier to contemplate a practical way of bridging, at least on a personal level, the gap between persons who embrace Christianity and Islam, respectively.
In Southern California in the area where I live there is one Shia (Pomona) and one Ahmadiyya (Chino) mosque. That in itself is interesting because of the vastly different histories that the two sects of Islam have. I was informally exposed to what I came to find out was Ahmadiyya Islam in late 2002, at the Los Angeles County Fair. The head of a mosque in Chino staffed a booth at the fair. However, I did not extend myself to become acquainted with the people at the booth. Instead, I stood apart and listened to a conversation that one of the staffers was having with other fair attendees. The basic line of thought was that Islam means peace in Arabic and that the Ahmadiyya sect takes that idea literally. "So that's why I'm a pacifist," said this booth staffer.
I was reminded of that particular statement some weeks later when I began research for this project. That statement had been at odds with everything that was being said about Muslims, especially after 9/11. Library research revealed that, in Asia, especially Pakistan, from where they were actually expelled in the mid-1980s, Ahmadiyya Muslims have been and are persecuted for their pacifism (Jones, 1996).
Despite my interest in...