November 8th, 1999-Dr. Taha Jabir Alalwani, President of The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, joined the Project MAPS board and attended their first advisory meeting. Muslims in American Public Square (MAPS) www.projectmaps.com is hosted by the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. The Center was founded to foster a civilizational dialogue between the Muslim world and the West as well as between Islam and Christianity.

Dr. John Espositio, Director of the Center is acting as overall coordinator of Project MAPS. Project MAPS will provide scholarly studies of the American Muslim community that will help dispel misunderstanding that have developed concerning the public perception of the American Muslim community and assist the American Muslim community in meeting the challenges before it, including the challenge of living as Muslims in a pluralistic society. Dr. Sulayman Nyang and Dr. Zahid Bukhari, co-directors of Project MAP, presented the details of the project. Board members discussed the two proposed scholarly volumes to be published by the project and other project objectives. The advisory board consists of Dr. Taha Jaber Alalwani, GSISS; Dr. Vincent Cornell, Duke University; Dr. John Esposito, Georgetown University; Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, SUNY, Binghamton; Dr. Akbar Muhammad, SUNY, Binghamton; and Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University.