Nashida Alam is tired of explaining she is not from Iraq. Or from Saudia Arabia. And no, not from Egypt.
"Yes, I wear the Hijab and I'm Muslim, but my family is from Bangladesh," the 19-year-old north suburban resident said. "For some reason people are surprised by this."
In a study released Wednesday, billed as the most comprehensive of its kind, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ambitiously maps the world's Muslim population.
The vast contours of the map are surprising: More than 60 percent of the world's Muslims live in Asia, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria and Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
Like Alam, Northwestern University student Muhammed Safdari is frustrated by what he believes to be a potentially virulent strain of thinking.
"Islam is often regarded as though it exists in a specific geographic region," he said. [That's] condescending and annoying."
That's why Safdari is leading a student initiative to establish an Islamic Studies Program at Northwestern University.
Given the intricacy of the religion, the initiative contends that Islam must be taught through a multidisciplinary lens – a crucial approach its backers say Northwestern lacks. The university's department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies doesn't go far enough, they say.
"Most of the classes on Islam are associated with Middle Eastern politics," said Dulce Acosta-Licea, Islamic Studies program committee chair. "However, the conversation extends beyond this region and realm."
Gerald Hankerson, outreach coordinator of Chicago's Council on American-Islamics Relations, notes that 9/11 sent ripples through the academic landscape.
"Before 9/11, you may have had Islam Awareness Week and that was it," he said. "Now there is a heightened curiosity and interest in the religion."
Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Pew's demographic study dispels Islam as a monolith.
"Any major university should have a department covering Islam worldwide," he said.
Northwestern's associate provost of undergraduate education Ronald Braeutigam said he has not seen a proposal, though he is aware of the effort. "Once it starts to take shape," he said, "the curricular discussions can begin with the relevant undergraduate school."Institutions like DePaul University and Loyola University in Chicago have such programs in place.
Four years ago Dr. Marcia Hermansen, the director of Loyola University's Islamic World Studies program, argued the viability of such a program's existing independently."It's still a struggle because, ultimately, this is a question of how we want to divide the academic pie," she noted. "Certain political events have transformed Islam from something esoteric to highly relevant."
Other universities like University of Illinois-Chicago, cite the uptick in student interest regarding Islam, but lack the institutional resources needed to execute an official course of study.
"Some academics still don't see Islam as an important academic growth area, so we are falling ever further behind," said Dr. Norma Moruzzi, director of UIC's International Studies program.
"People of other religions are seen as having different histories and cultural specificities," she said. "But there exists an assumption that Muslims are one-dimensional."
Alam scoffs at the perceived one-dimensionality of 23 percent of the world's population.
"Sometimes," Alam laughed, "I'll answer questions about Islam with questions, like, 'Do all Catholics live in Italy?' or 'Do all Italians like the Pope?'" Alam laughed. "That usually helps to clear things up."