What they hear is that men and women were created from a single pear.

They are 60 visitors - awkward but well-meaning - worrying the unfamiliar carpet of the mosque's basement room with their socks. Most arrived this evening with their arms and legs covered, some have scarves or sweaters draped on their heads. They're grinning politely; they're trying to be open-minded; they know they have everything to learn, and plenty to unlearn, about Islam.

But they're strangers, expecting strangeness. So when Justin Hvitfeldt stands up to explain the creation story, more than a few of them hear: "In Islam we believe, as in Christianity, that man was created from a pear. Men and women from a single pear, so that we share the same soul."

Visitors look around uneasily. Finally, a woman in the third row ventures, "How are you spelling pear?"

"P-A-I-R?" Mr. Hvitfeldt says, puzzled.

"Oh!" somebody says, and little "oh's" echo from around the crowded room. After a beat, the visitors start to giggle nervously. After another, so do their teachers, Hvitfeldt and his wife, Andrea Useem.

"No," Hvitfeldt says, "we don't believe we were created from a fruit...."

But speaking of fruit: "We also don't believe woman was responsible for the downfall of man."

The Islamic Society of Boston in Cambridge, Mass., has opened its doors to groups of visitors like these every week since Sept. 11. The community outreach began with an ISB open house the week of the attacks; 700 locals attended, many of them searching for ways to show support for Muslims and to learn about Islam. After this flood of interest, the society decided to offer this "Introduction to Islam" class, a discussion series, and a display at the Boston Public Library. Numerous such efforts have sprung up nationwide in the past six weeks.

For a Muslim community, hosting these events invariably raises questions about who can best communicate the tenets of Islam to a US audience.

At the ISB, Ms. Useem and Hvitfeldt volunteered. Both were born in the United States and have recently converted to Islam. Hvitfeldt grew up in Wisconsin with little religious instruction, and embraced Islam three years ago after a difficult battle with depression. Useem was raised Episcopalian in a suburb of Boston. She became a Muslim two years ago, while working as a journalist covering North African Muslim communities after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

So, for tonight's crowd - many of them 20-somethings - they're relatively easy emissaries of Islam to embrace. They can joke in American idioms, they use American slang. "One thing about the Muslim community in the US," says Hvitfeldt, "is that a lot of people are recent immigrants, still learning the language. Part of the reason we volunteered to teach the class was that we could communicate more easily, and maybe have more in common with the people who'd be attending."

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