Resources

New: May 11, 2005. Forthcoming Article: Christopher Buck, “University of North Carolina’s Qur’an Controversy.” The State of Islamic Studies in American Universities. Edited by Mumtaz Ahmad. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006. (Forthcoming.)

08 September 2004 "Suit over Book on Islam Dismissed."

Note that in some cases these articles, transcripts, and sound files may no longer be archived at the URL's listed, or may require registration or payment to retrieve.

Through personal experience, I am now discovering in journalism "the good" (e.g. Ferreri, Cooperman, Jonsson, Shimron, Hochberg, WURL, R&E Newsweekly), the mistaken (Braun, LA Times) ,the ugly (David Van Bierma, Time Magazine), the intellectually dishonest (Buckley, Bentley) of journalism, and the vile (the Jerusalem Post, a formerly great newspaper now devoted to the same kind of hate against Arabs and Muslims that antisemitic writers in the Arab and Muslim press have leveled against Jews). See examples and explanations below, as well as a list of as many other major resources as I have been able to gather.

 For one of the most extensive and professionally researched newspaper treatment, see:
"A Timely Subject -- and a Sore One: UNC Draws Fire, Lawsuit for Assigning Book on Islam
The Washington Post, Alan Cooperman, Front Page (A01), 07 August 2002*
*Note: the online version of the articles have often been posted one day before the print version has appeared.

For my Op-Ed response, which originally appeared in the Washington Post and has been picked up by numerous other newspapers, with a wide range of titles, none chosen by me, some more appropriate than others, chosen by the editors, see:
Michael Sells, "Understanding, Not Indoctrination," Op Ed, Washington Post, 08 August 2002.

For one of the most the most detailed and in-depth discussions of the issue, see the transcript of the "Interview with Michael Sells," The Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, 21 August 2002, as well as the Religion and Ethics overview page, "The UNC Qur'an Controversy," and its linked pages to interviews with UNC religious studes professor Carl Ernst and UNC Students.

• Bill O’Reilly debates Professor Robert Kirkpatrick, the chairperson of the UNC committtee that selected Approaching the Qur'an for the 2002 annual reading assignment. Fox Cable News, 7/10/2002.
  
  
• "UNC and the Koran" National Public Radio's Morning Edition. 29 May 2002.
  Audio report by NPR’s Adam Hochberg on the Carolina Summer Reading Program.
  
  
• "Sura Reading, The University of North Carolina Makes the Koran Required Reading for Incoming Freshmen," by Beth Henary, Weekly Standard, 07/25/2002.
  • *Note, This is a fine early treatment of the controversy, but there was a mistake in the article that the author, upon my communication, kindly corrected. The statement in the article that the plaintiffs against UNC had called me an "Islamist" (i.e. a proponent of the establishment of Islamic religious law or shari`a as law of the nation), was incorrect. The complaint called me an Islamicist (which I am) but gave the bizarre definition of Islamicist as one who is sympathetic to or subscribes to Islam.
    
    This polemical definition of "Islamicist" in the complaint by the plaintiffs against UNC allows for some thoughts on a rather dangerous confusion of definitions. After several years of terminological chaos, there is a growing consensus that the term Islamist refers to those who wish a state governed by Islamic religious law, and that the term Islamicist refers to scholars of Islamic religion, Islamic civilization, and Islamic history. Jerry Falwell actually did use the term Islamist to refer to me. I am not an Islamist or a believer in any nation state governed by religious law, whether that law be Dharmic, Halakhic, Shari`a, or Christian-Biblical law, but rather a state that respects all religious dispensations, but within the rules based on civil rights and tolerance (no stoning of women who have children out of wedlock, no infanticide against female babies out of religious and cultural differential in valuation of male and female, no prosecution of people on unanswerable allegations of "blasphemy" or "disbelief," no "ethnic cleansing" or religious apartheid, no forced divorces of those accused of heresy, no denial of rights to those not considered properly Jewish or Muslim by self-proclaimed truly orthodox factions, no state persecution or discrimination against pork-eaters, meat-eaters, homosexuals, caste-mixers (those engaged in 'miscegenation') or others proscribed by the strict legal codes of the Christian Bible, the Torah, the Hindu Dharma Shastras, or the shari`a. All such forms of persecution should be, to adapt a religious sanction to the view of a modern, civil society, anathema. Is there a way of aligning halakhic, shari`a, dharmic, or Christian-biblical standards with states founded upon ideals of interreligious tolerance and upon the criminalization of only those acts that directly harm individuals in society: perhaps, with hard work and patience and ongoing indefinite, careful political negotiation. Should the majority faction in any society be allowed to impose its own version upon the rest? No.
    
    Definition of terms. "Muslim": one who subscribes to Islam. "Islamophile": one who is sympathetic to Islam. "Islamophobe": one who is antagonistic toward Islam. "Islamicist": a scholar of Islamic religion, civilization, or history, as in "Germanist," a scholar of Germanic society, civilization, and history, or "botanist," a scholar of flora.
    
    
• Eric Ferreri, "Author Weighs in on Book on Quran."
  Originally published in the Chapel Hill Herald, Sunday, July 28, 2002, final edition, page 1.
  
  This article is precise and detailed. It accurately portrays my words and the complex issues that are intertwined within this controversy. In the case the correspondent, Mr. Ferreri, is concerned primarily with converying accurately the viewpoint of the author of the book at the center of the debate. The result is a discussion that can proceed deeper into the issues, guided by a writer whose questions constantly move the discussion forward.
  
  
• FoxNews reports on pro-Islam requirement at UNC.
  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53402,00.html.
  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,57205,00.html.
  
  
• University of North Carolina Summer Reading Program, 2002 Home Page.
  
  
• The Family Policy Network Home Page.
  The Family Policy Network on the UNC Assignment.
  Statement of The Family Policy Network's Principles.
  http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/12/202001d.asp.
  
  
• News & Observer article about Islam requirement controversy:
  http://newsobserver.com/news/triangle/story/1406152p-1440245c.html.
  
  
• WRAL-TV in Raleigh covers UNC/Islam controversy:
  http://www.wral.com/news/1478767/detail.html.
  
  
• WURL Boston NPR Show on the Controversy.
  (The best and most carefully prepared radio discussion)
  
  
• A Thoughtful Story on the Controversy from UNC Students Another News & Observer Story.
  
  
• University sued over Islam reading assignment.
  CNN, July 24, 2002 Posted: 12:17 AM EDT (0417 GMT).
  
  
• Michael Sells and Joe Glover debate the UNC controversy with Hannity and Colmes, Fox News Channel, 26 July 2002, 9-10PM, EST.
  
  
• Edgy First College Assignment: Study the Koran, by Patrik Jonsson, Special to The Christian Science Monitor, 30 July 2002. Highly recommended.
  
  
• Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune.
  
  
• "A Timely Subject -- and a Sore One: UNC Draws Fire, Lawsuit for Assigning Book on Islam.
  The Washington Post, Alan Cooperman, Front Page (A01), 07 August 2002.
  
  
• "U.S. University Sued over Koran Class," BBC News World Edition, 07 August 2002.
  
  
• Michael Sells, "Understanding, Not Indoctrination," Op Ed, Washington Post. 08 August 2002.
  This was not the title I had chosen for the piece. The Same Op-Ed piece has been reprinted in many other newspapers, with titles chosen not by the author, but by the individual editors. See for example Newsday, 9 August, 2002, which gives my op-ed a title ("The Qur'an is a Manual for Enlightenment") that makes a claim I do not make in the op-ed piece and do not make in the book. As a scholar of religions, I see constantly that what the Qur'an, Bible, or other sacred texts teach can be enlightenment or blindness, tolerance or persecution, openness or narrowness of spirit, depending on who is interpreting these texts. The fact that the editors would have changed my clearly stated position shows how difficult it is for those, of whatever political persuasion, to view religions without immediately jumping to a generalized conclusion. I do claim that the passages I present are among the more influential words in human history, that they have constructive meanings for human beings related to issues of the meaning of life and the need for justice, and that it is important to understand how these texts are read and encountered by one fifth of the world's population. I may have my own interpretation of the Qur'an or Bible or Bhagavad Gita, but as I scholar, I don't present my personal theologies, but rather attempt to elucidate the literary and theological patterns in the texts, how the sacred texts influence traditions, and the disagreements within traditions on how to interpret these texts.
  
  
• "Book in Dispute," USA Today, 11A, 09 August 2002.
  Joe Glover, "Book Fails to Tell the Whole Truth," USA Today, 11A, 09 August 2002.
  Response: "Quest for Knowledge Ignites Baseless Fight," USA Today, 11A, 09 August 2002.
  In this point-counterpoint on the USA Today op-ed page, Joe Glover of the Family Policy Network sets forth his objections to the UNC assignmnet of Approaching the Qur'an and the response article presents are defense of the assignment. Both pieces are well-written and clearly articulated defenses of the two respective positions, and the pieces together form a good summary of the controversy at this stage in its development.
  
  
• "Lawmakers Move to Withhold Funds from from Koran Assignment," Washington Post, 09 August 2002
  
  
• Charlie Warren Show, Interview with Michael Sells, ABC Radio, Washington, D.C. 9-9:45PM, 09 August 2002.
  
  
• ABC Radio, San Francisco, Live Call-in, with Michael Sells as featured guest, 10:00-11:00 PM, 09 August, 2002.
  
  
• A Political Cartoon from the Herald Sun.
  
  
• Johnny Gilbert, 06' UNCincoming freshman, "Americans Should Read Book on Qur'an," Young Voices, Greensboro New & Record (One of the best things written on the topic).  
  
  
• "A Kinder, Gentler Koran," David Van Biema, Time Magazine, 08/13/02.
  A snide trivialization of the university, its opponents, the author, the book, the topic, and the larger issue of religion, education, and society.
   
  
• Interview with Michael Sells, WNYC radio, New York City, the Brian Lehrer Show, 11:00 AM-12:00 hour, 13 August 2002.
  
  
• The Portland Oregonian, 13 August 2002.
  On publisher Stephen Scholl of White Cloud Press and his reactions to the controversy
  
  
• Group Challenges School over Quran, Newdays, William Holmes, Associated Press, 14 August 2002.
  
  
• Ramadhan Pohan, "Prof Michael A. Sells dan Kontroversi Kajian Alquran di Kampus AS,"
  Two Front Pages articles in the Jawa Post, August 15, 16, 2002.
  
  
• Judge OK's UNC Students to Read Quran, Newsday,
  Estes Thompson, Associated Press, 16 August 2002
  
  
• Raleigh North Carolina Barnes and Noble Bookstore.
  
  
• "Rights and the New Reality: No Blinders on Education," Los Angeles Times, Editorial, 17 August 2002
  
  
• "Requirement on Reading Koran Provokes Bitter Battle," Yonat Shimron, Religion News Service, Los Angeles Times, 17 August 2002.
  Excellent Coverage that brings out accurately the difference positions taken in the debate. The article has appeared in various other newspapers, under different titles. See "College Quran Assignment Sparks Debate," By Yonat Shimron; Religion News Service, The Times-Picayune, 17 August, 2002, p. 14, byline Raleigh, 14 August 2002.
  
  
• PBS, Talk of the Nation, Thursday 15 August, 2002. Includes interviews with Joe Glover of the Family Policy Network, Michael Sells, and John Esposito.
  


• William Buckley, "Aren't We Owed an Apology," National Review, 16 August 2002.
  Citing no less an authority but Time Magazine (see above), Buckley--like those in Cairo or Pakistan howling condemnations of books they have not read but know are bad based on sources similar in quality toTime, offers the following: "The bowdlerizers at the University of North Carolina have got out a special edition of the Koran (political correctness: the Qur'an). The book, handed out to incoming freshmen, is designed to communicate the teachings of the Prophet. This edition is exorcised of any sentiments such as might have impelled the knights of 9/11 to plunge themselves and their steeds into live Americans, innocent of any infidelity to Islam, this side of not adhering to it . . ."
  
  Bowdlerization Balderdash.
  Mr. Buckley's rage has left him both incapable of checking his evidence and incapable of using the English language correctly. Not only is Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations not a bowdlerization (Just because you can sling a five syllable word, doesn't mean you are smart), it is not an "edition of the Koran" at all. It is a translation and discussion of one section of the Qur'an ("the early revelations or suras" as is indicated in the title and made thoroughly clear in the introduction and throughout the text). It never advertises itself as anything other. Translations and commentaries on the Psalms or on the Bhagavad Gita, of which there are hundreds in English, are neither editions of the Bible or the Mahabharata (the larger texts of which they are part) nor "bowdlerizations" of those texts. It makes no claim about Islam as a whole.
  
  We are indeed owed an apology for the verbal sloppiness that runs through William Buckley's harangue. If Buckley, like his book-condemning counterparts on the streets of Cairo, is too lazy to look at--let along read--the book upon which he wishes to propound, he might crib his information from a source more reliable than Time. Buckley's remarks were echoed by several of the editors of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, one of whom, William Bentley, accused UNC of trying to prove that "Muslims are not dangerous." Are Muslims dangerous? Are North Carolinians dangerous? Some are, some aren't, and many in both groups can be dangerous or not depending on circumstance. Those legislator's in North Carolina proclaiming war against Islam and, in effect, all Muslims are dangerous indeed, and the dangerous element among Muslims can only applaud their efforts, and those of Mr. Buckley and Mr. Bentley, to attack Islam and let their fulminations echo around the Islamic world, further radicalizing it -- just the knee jerk reaction that Bin Laden had hoped to provoke. Fortunately, so far, most Americans are not ready to match the Jihad of Islamic fanatics with a Crusade, but would rather focus their response on those truly dangerous individuals and groups within Islam that do indeed support a total war against the West.
  
  
• Doug Johnson, Associated Press, Chapel Hill, 19 August 2002,
  "UNC Students Discuss Quran Primer."
  
  
• Required Reading," New York Times Editorial, 19 August 2002.
  
  
• August 19, 2002 Monday 2:31 PM Eastern Time, "Court Won't Halt UNC Quran Course," Bill Baskerville, Richmond, VA, AP.
  
  
•  "UNC Students Discuss Qur'an Text," New York Times, 19 August 2002, AP.
  
  
• "Interview and listener call-in discussion with Michael Sells," Jerry Agar Show, WPTF, 5:00PM-5:48PM Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, Monday 19 August 2002.
  One of the more extensive radio call-in treatments. Excellent show, well prepared, with a range of callers.
  
  
• "Students' Reading of Koran is Upheld," Stephen Braun, staff writer, Los Angeles Times, 20 August 2002.
  This article contains serious errors. Here is a copy of the letter of correction that I am sending to the Los Angeles Times.
  • To the Editor:
    I am writing to correct a significant mistake in the article "Student Readings of Koran Text is Upheld" (20 August 2002). The article describes the controversy over the University of North Carolina's required summer reading of my book, Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations. The North Carolina house of representatives has passed a bill prohibiting UNC from assigning the book unless the assignment also treated "all known religions." In my phone interview, I pointed out that there are probably at least 500 known religions in the world, and mentioned that I taught aspects of seven religious traditions, including Igbo in West Africa and the Ojibwa tradition of the American north plains. Concerning the "all known religions" requirement, I remarked that "This is why we don't want state legislatures setting the curriculum for state educational institutions."
    
    The article, however, mistakenly represented my comments as follows: "'This is why you don't want state legislatures controlling religious instruction,' Sells said. 'There are 500 known religions in the world.'"I would not never venture an exact number of known religions because defining the boundaries between some traditions are hard to draw--which is one of the absurdities of the legislative language in question. I did not use the term "religious instruction." Religious instruction is offered by religious educators (such as sheikhs, ministers, priests, rabbis, and gurus) in places of worship or religious schools. Neither my book nor the UNC assignment involve religious instruction. The distinction between learning about religions and religious instruction (catechism), is absolutely essential to discussions of the place of the study of religions in public schools. If UNC had been engaged in "religious instruction" I would have joined the lawsuit filed against filed that was filed against the university on the grounds that UNC violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
    
    
• Live interview and call-in with Michael Sells, WUNC radio, 20 August 2002.
  
  
• "Interview with Michael Sells," on PBS Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. This is one of the most the most detailed and in-depth discussions of the issue. It is a transcript of the 10 AM Wednesday 21 August 2002, based on questions that break out some of the more narrow parameters more common to the debate. The Religion & Ethics Newsweekly also contain an excellent general page, "The UNC Qur'an Controversy," linked to a page of comments by UNC students. Also included is an in-depth interview with UNC religious studies professor Carl Ernst who recommended the book to the selection committee.
  


• PBS Television Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Program #551, a production of Thirteen/WNET New York, original ai date 23 August, 2002. The program includes a segment on the UNC controversy, with interviews by Chancellor James Moeser, Professor Carl Ernst, Family Policy Network president Terry Moffit, Michael Sells, and group of UNC students. The interviews are short, edited cuts from the longer interviews that are featured (in transcript form) on the WEB site list immediately above. For an overview of the series and a guide to the programs, see Religious & Ethics Newsweekly, now one of the more substantive and well-researched resource on religion available on U.S. network or cable television.
  


• Discussion with Michael Sells of the UNC-Qur'an Controversy, Interfaith Voices, Program #24, interview with Maureen Fiedler, LS, 10:30AM, 20 August 2002, to be placed online on Saturday, 31 August 2002.
  
  
• "UNC Students Begin Koran Course," BBC News World Edition, Tuesday 20 August 2002.
  
  
• "Required Reading," ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel, Wednesday 21 August 2002. Includes short statements by UNC Chancellor James Moeser and Michael Sells, and an interview-debate with John Esposito and David Horowitz. For a response to Nightline by David Horowitz, see: David Horowitz, "Ted Koppel's Spin Zone: How Nightline Controls What You See," By David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com, August 23, 2002.
  
  This show suffered from a poor decision by one of the producers. It was advertised as a debate over the UNC controversy raised by the socially conservative Christian group The Family Policy Network. But rather than presenting a spokesperson from the Family Policy Network or another critic with the same perspective, it brought in David Horowitz, whose complaint is with what he views as the liberal and anti-Israeli bias in American academia in general, and in the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), in particular. I have enormous report for Mr. Koppel, many of whose programs, particularly on Mostar and the Omarska and Trnopolje concentration camps, I have purchased as models of journalism and as essential sources on the atrocities, "ethnic cleansing," and genocide in Bosnia. But it appears one of the producers (who evidently did not speak to me or let me know what was going on) had an agenda more concerned with MESA than with the UNC-controversy to which it related, but not in a direct way.
  
  
• "Preparation or Proselytizing? Reading the Koran – and the Bible – at Carolina," by D.G. Martin, Mountain Xpress, 21 August 2002, vol 9 no 3. An opinion piece by someone who really knows how to write. By the way, Mountain Xpress is one fine magazine.
  
  
• "To Read the Koran," editorial, Washington Post, Thursday, 22 August 2002; Page A16.
  
  
• Live Interview with Michael Sells, on WPTF AM Radio, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, 7:40 AM, 22 August 2002.
  
  
• Voice of America Interview with Judith Latham, Michael Sells featured guest, 4:00-4:40 PM, 22 August 2002.
  
  
• CNN Sunday Morning, Live Interview and discussion with Michael Sells, 11:40AM, 25 August 2002.
  
  
• "Sanitizing Islam," Jerusalem Post, Editorial, 25 August 2002.
  A specimen of hate discourse. The title sets the tone. What needs to be sanitized: privies and infected areas. The choice of the metaphor is a classic of hate speech: the people to be dehumanized on account of their race, religion, or nationality, are compared to something filthy or to an infection or cancer. After this edifying opening, the column goes on to describe the forthcoming atrocity in Nigeria, where Amina Lawal has been sentenced to death by stoning by local "shari`a court"--an atrocity that anyone with a heart, mind, and soul will condemn and work to avert--as the essence of Islam and of Muslims generally. This is the classic technique of hate speech: to pick out an inhuman act committed in the name of a people and ascribe that act to the people as a whole and to their essence, nature, or unchangeable being. Of course, the same hate speech is leveled by some Arabs and Muslims against Jews. Thus the 1982 atrocities and crimes against humanity in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps of Beirut, for which Ariel Sharon was held responsible by his own government's commission and for which he was condemned by human rights organizations throughout the world, is now being used by anti-Semites in the Arab world to imply that such cowardice and inhumanity are attributes of Judaism or of Jews. Not surprisingly, those charges are accompanied by the same metaphors for filth and infection that are employed against Muslims in this editorial.
  
  As a good friend of mine said, about such hate-mongering: they should put the extremists from both sides in a cell and lock them up together. Ironically, in the case of war-crimines in Bosnia, extremists from both sides were locked up together at the Hague, but it turned out that the Croat Catholic war criminals who had butchered Serb civilians, and the Serb Orthodox war criminals, who had committed similar atrocities against Croats, got along famously in jail together. They even announced their mutual friendship and solidarity. The lesson is that extremists are more attached to their hate than they are to the people on whose behalf they are allegedly outraged. If we put the editors of the Jerusalem Post into the same room with the editors of those newspapers publishing ant-Semitic hate literature, they would find themselves liking each other very much indeed.

---

The Jersualem Post's Vision of Israel

"It is not that Israel is losing its soul. That happened a long time ago. It seems now that it is losing its mind." This comment was made by an Israeli friend of mine in reference to the demise of the Jerusalem Post and what that demise symbolizes Formerly an outstanding newspaper, with the best writers in Israel writing for the paper, the Jerusalem Post was taken over by Canadian mogul Conrad Black and turned into the moral and intellectual debacle it has become. Israeli writers were fired in favor of syndicated reviews and columns from elsewhere, mainly North America. The Post fired its union printers and replaced them with desperate Palestianians from Ramalla, who are on the edge of starvation and who are forced to take whatever crumbs a Conrad Black wishes to thrown their way. Israel as envisioned by the Jerusalem Post of Conrad Black: a sense of moral superiority, a virulently racist contempt for Palestinians and for Muslims, use of classic union-busting techniques, the turning of Palestinians into a permanent servant class even as, with consummate moral superiority, more Palestinian land is seized (for "security purposes") to make "prestige apartments" for middle class American colonists at places like the luxury settlementHar Homa, subsidized by heavy taxes on Israeli citizens and guarded by a new Israeli permanent police-soldier caste with the back of U.S. military, economic, and political capital. There are other visions of Israel; such is the vision of the Jerusalem Post.



• OnLine Email Live Question and Response, Islamonline, on the topic: "New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy," 11:00AM--12:00Noon, Monday, 26 August 2002. Questions and answers remain online.


• "Islam's Anguish," Boston Globe Editorial on UNC-Controversy and in the West and in Islam, 29 August 2002.


• Michael Sells, "The Qur'an, Peace, and Religious Violence," open lecture, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 7:30 PM, 5 September 2002. Michael Sells discusses his book, Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations, in the context of the current controversy over UNC's decision to assign the book for its summer reading program. This 90-minute event was shown in full on CSPAN2, "Book Events," Sunday, 8 September 2002 at 1:20 pm and against on Monday, 9 September 02, at 1:20AM. For more information about the segment, go to the following site at BookTV. A videocassette is available of the program, both address and question and answer discussion (time total 1:35), for $29.00 (Michael Sells receives no proceeds and no royalties from the sale) from BookTV's videotape site.
  
  
• Michael Sells and Mob Morey, Call-in Discussion, Tim-N-Al Show, KISL AM 630, St. Louis, Missouri, 30 August 2002.
  
  
• Michael Sells speaks on the The Qur'an, UNC, and freedom of speech at the Common Sense Foundation, Chapel Hill, 5:30-7:30pm, 6 September 02.
  
  
• Eric Hoover, "Unfaxed (and Unconverted) by Book on Koran," Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 September 2002.
  An informative and witty look at the controversy, which begins "In the end, the book that had proved so divisive broughtstudents together in a circle.

  On a Monday afternoon last month, officials and professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led most ofthe college's 4,000 entering freshmen and transfer students in discussions of a scholarly book about the Koran. The two-hour seminars, of about 30 students each, took place after federal courts rejected attempts by a Christian group to block the discussions.
  

• Book Reading and book signing, Michael Sells, author of Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations. Quail Ridge Bookstore, Raleigh, North Carolina, Saturday, 7 September 02, 10:00AM.
  
  
• Michael Sells, "Heart of the Qur'an Belt," feature essay, on the UNC-Qur'an controversy and Approaching the Qur'an, Religious Studies News / SBL Edition, September 2002, vol. 3, number 9.
  
  
• Michael Sells, "Suing the Qur'an," a reprint of the 8 August 2002 Washington Post op-ed piece "Understanding, not Indoctrination," now under the original title given by the author, special September 11 issue, of The American Muslim.
  
  
• Comedy Central, The Daily Show, 11 PM, Tuesday 9 October 2002, rebroadcast at 5:30 PM, Wednesday 10 October 2002. Comedy Central's crack investigator probes insidious happenings at the Madrasa known as the University of North Carolina in Chap al-Hill, including an interview with alleged Mulla, Caliph, and Grand Mufti Robert Kirkpatrick, chairperson of the committee that selected Approaching the Qur'an as the annual summer reading assignment, along with an interview with a student on the infamous practice known as al-l-night-aar, where students stay up all night writing, talling, and reading subversive books. Kirkpatrick queried on the alleged existence of 250,000 UNC al-umni spreading such ideas around the world. Kirkpatrick responds, in a stern, stentorial, and solemn voice: "There are no muftis here."
  
  
• Michael Sells, Feature Interview with John Roberts, topic: Misperceptions concerning the Qur'an, "Sunday Cover" segment, CBS Evening News, Sunday, 13 October, 2002. For transcripts or video, contact a transcript of this broadcast, please call 1-800-777-TEXT. For a video copy, call 212-975-2547. Make sure to verify the proper program: the interview was originally scheduled for 6 October.
  
  
• Vicky Lettmann, "The Suras of Carolina," under "Required Reading," Speakeasy, November 2002.
  
  

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