Muslims guide will focus on cold end of thermometer

In the fall of 2014, a journalism class at Michigan State University will produce “100 Questions and Answers About Muslim Americans.” This is part of the school’s series of guides in cultural competence.

This will be the seventh guide in the series and the first to focus on one religion. We expect to do more interfaith guides like this in subsequent semesters.

We will come up with questions by asking a diverse group of Muslims what they wish other people knew about them and where they encounter knowledge gaps.

We intend to use journalism to fill some of those gaps to make it easy for people to get answers to their first, most basic questions. Then, we hope they will continue the dialogue by having more conversations on their own.

This temperature chart, from a June study by the Pew Research Center, shows that Americans on average are cooler toward Muslims than toward other groups. To us, this illustrates the need for some answers.