You've been told to love your Muslim neighbors. No one told you how to understand them.

Most Christians who want to engage Islam honestly run into the same wall: the resources available to them are either so gentle they avoid the hard questions, or so adversarial they'd embarrass anyone in the room.

You want something different. You want to understand what Islam actually teaches — from its own sources — so that when the conversation gets serious, you're not caught guessing. And you want to do it without becoming the kind of person your Muslim neighbor would rightly find offensive.

That combination is rarer than it should be. This curriculum was built to provide it.

If you've done Bridges, you're ready for this.

The Crescent Project's Bridges curriculum has trained over 24,000 Christians to see their Muslim neighbors as people rather than problems.

Bridges answers one question: How do I begin a conversation with my Muslim neighbor? It answers it beautifully. But eventually that conversation reaches a harder question -- about Muhammad, about the Quran, about what Islam actually claims historically. And relational warmth alone doesn't prepare you for that moment. This curriculum picks up where Bridges stops. It takes you into the territory where truth claims and historical evidence actually meet -- using Islam's own sources, with enough care that a Muslim in the room would call it fair.

The governing standard:

"A Muslim in the room, would leave with their dignity intact."

Every session in this curriculum was built against a single test: if a Muslim guest were present, would they leave feeling that their faith was represented accurately — and that they were treated with respect? This is not a soft standard. It means the curriculum cannot caricature, cannot mock, and cannot misrepresent Islamic doctrine to make it easier to critique. It must present what Islam actually claims, with accuracy and genuine fairness, before examining what the historical record shows. Honest. Not hostile. Rigorous. Not contemptuous. Those are the two rails this curriculum runs on.

Four courses. One urgent conversation.

Priced to facilitate having the conversation the world urgently needs to have. Better to have dialogue than domination. Conversation than conflict.

Course 1 — The Book, The Man, and The PlaceA Historical and Forensic Investigation

Islam rests on three foundational claims: that the Quran is the perfectly preserved word of God, that Muhammad was a reliable prophet, and that Mecca is the ancient sacred site of Abraham and Ishmael. Course 1 examines each claim against the historical record — using the same standards applied to any ancient source.

5 units · 13 sessions

Course 2 — Introduction to IslamWhat Islam Actually Teaches, From Its Own Sources

Before you can engage Islam honestly, you need to understand it accurately. Course 2 covers the Five Pillars, the Six Articles of Faith, the role of Muhammad, Islamic law and family structure, the Islamic view of Jesus, and the internal diversity of Sunni, Shia, and Sufi traditions — all drawn from primary Islamic sources.

4 units · 10 sessions

Course 3 — The Islamic DilemmaThe Logical Core That Changes Every Conversation

The Islamic Dilemma is a single argument with devastating implications for Islamic truth claims: the Quran affirms the Bible as authoritative scripture, but the Bible contradicts the Quran on nearly every major theological point. Course 3 walks through the argument, the Islamic escape routes, and why each one fails.

4 units · 12 sessions

Course 4 — Islam in the Modern WestPolitical Islam, Dawah, and the Informed Citizen

Islam is not only a religion — it is a comprehensive legal, political, and social system. Course 4 covers Dawah (Islamic outreach) and how to recognize its standard scripts, blasphemy and apostasy law, political Islam's use of democratic processes, and how to respond as a well-informed, compassionate citizen.

5 units · 12 sessions

This is for anyone who wants to understand Islam honestly, and without embarrassment.

This curriculum is for you if…

  • You've tried to understand Islam and found most resources either too soft or too hostile
  • You live, work, or worship in a community with significant Muslim presence
  • You've been in a conversation with a Muslim neighbor and felt under-prepared
  • You lead a small group and want a resource that will hold up under hard questions
  • You believe honesty and compassion are not in tension, and you want a curriculum that teaches communicating truth in love.
  • You're a researcher, educator, journalist, or policy professional who needs accurate grounding in Islamic doctrine and history

Start here. Where it goes is up to you.

The Alif student track is the foundation. Ambitious participants who complete it are eligible to pursue a teaching license - and a licensed teacher can bring this material to a congregation, a classroom, a city, or a continent. The curriculum's reach - and your earning potential - is limited only by the people willing to carry it.

  • 47 Sessions across 4 courses - each 90 minutes of structured teaching

  • Participant Workbook (digital) - follow - along notes, discussion questions, and key terms for every session

  • Session Resources - primary source references, recommended reading, and research support built into every unit

  • Certificate of Completion - issued upon finishing all four Alif Level courses. A pre-requesit to the Baa Level-2 Curriculum

  • Satisfaction guarantee - if this isn't what was described, email me within 30 days for a full refund. [email protected]

Ready to understand Islam the way it deserves to be understood?

The conversation is already happening around you. This is how you enter it prepared.

Get all four Alif courses - $97

About the author and why this curriculum exists

The Two Muhammads

A. C. Rosenthal is an independent researcher and author. His work is unfunded, which means the course answers only to the evidence - not some funder's agenda. And the evidence is why he built this curriculum.

Islam is unique among the world's major religions in one structural feature that is rarely discussed plainly: it contains, within its own authoritative legal tradition, a framework for governing people who never chose it.

Every other major religion exists to transform the lives of those who voluntarily embrace it. Islam does that too. But it also contains a legal architecture to control and regulate the lives of all who do not believe in Islam - derived directly from its foundational texts and codified by its greatest classical jurists. Islam does not see itself as "for Muslims only". Islam divides the world into the house of Islam and the house of war, and specifies conditions under which non-Muslims may live under Islamic authority, subject to specific taxes, restrictions, and formal humiliation.

This is not fringe interpretation. Ibn Kathir. Al-Suyuti. Al-Shafi'i. ALL confirm this. These are the tradition's own most respected voices.

There is abrogation. Over one hundred peaceful Quranic verses overridden by later verses. The Quran presented to Western audiences is the one that still contains the canceled verses. All Qurans contain the canceled verses because they are convenient to quote. But they have no authority in court or to govern. They are made obsolete by the verses they were replaced by. Using them to argue that Islam is peaceful, is a form of Taqiyya.

Taqiyya, documented and defined by the tradition's own scholars, is not a conspiracy theory. It is religious deception for the promotion of political Islam.

None of this means that Muslims are your enemy. They are not. Muslims are our neighbours and I love Muslims. Islam makes victims of us all starting with the Muslim and then spreading out from there - using Muslims as its tool. Which means that understanding Islam from its own sources - not its most marketable presentations - is not optional. It is essential, for anyone who wants to think clearly about the world they are living in.

That is what this curriculum is about. You can walk away from this page. But you already know what you don't know. And that tends to be difficult to forget.