Members of the public are invited to participate in an open discussion on Islam in America with the prominent scholar Ambassador Akbar Ahmed of American University in Washington, D.C. and the team of his "Journey Into America <http://journeyintoamerica.wordpress.com/> " project from 2 - 3:30 p.m. today at the John A. Burns Hall of the East-West Center adjacent to the University of Hawaii campus.

A leading authority on contemporary Islam, Ambassador Ahmed and his team will be visiting the East-West Center as part of their year-long "Journey Into America" project, intended as "a unique anthropological study of American identity as seen through the eyes of Americans—both Muslim and non-Muslim. How do Muslims fit into contemporary American society? And how have the uniquely American ideals of pluralism, openness, and cultural integration held up in post-9/11 American society? Those are the driving questions behind 'Journey into America.'"

The cross-country ethnographic study will take Ahmed and his young American team to more than 30 American towns and cities for meetings with religious leaders of all denominations, in-depth interviews with Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbors and interfaith dialogues at leading universities across the country. Following the trip, the results of interviews, questionnaires and observations will be compiled and analyzed for a new book.

The project is the follow-up to a similar journey through the Muslim world that resulted in the book Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization. More information can be found at the project blog at: http://journeyintoamerica.wordpress.com <http://journeyintoamerica.wordpress.com/>

Ambassador Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. He was formerly the High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain. In September 2008, he was appointed the first Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, and he has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Cambridge universities and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.