ABSTRACT
Unless you keep yourself entirely isolated from the news in the United States, you have been deluged in recent years with a plethora of articles and images of Muslims and the Islamic religion. Impossible to miss was the attack of September 11, 2001, on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of New York City by radical terrorists who referred to themselves as Muslims. Hopefully, you have Muslim friends or neighbors so that you can appropriately balance what you are hearing and reading about in the news and what you know by way of acquaintance and neighborly familiarity. America culture is often referred to as Judeo-Christian leaving out the third of the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths: Islam. American culture is more properly understood as Abrahamic and not simply Judeo-Christian. In other words, Muslims and the religion of Islam have had a great deal to do with the shaping of Judeo-Christian cultures of Western civilization whether or not textbooks make note of this fact. Please do not allow the skewed portrayal of Muslims and the religion of Islam found in the popular media to set the tone of your interaction with Muslims-either personally or professionally. You will find, as you engage
Muslim patients and associates, many points of commonality with your own sense of tradition and faith.
