After Hendi's prayer, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham welcomed everyone to the program and made introductions.

Then Georgetown's Dr. John Esposito, the moderator, began with an instruction.

"This is not an academic lecture," Esposito said. "This is a dialogue . . .We have an absolute ban on speeches"

He began by asking each of the eight panelists a different question. Each panelist was given no more than two minutes to speak.

First, he asked Hadia Mubarak, a Georgetown graduate student who grew up in Florida, how the Muslim-American community experienced 9/11.

Mubarak said she and other American Muslims she knew felt two overriding emotions -- sad and estranged.

"American Muslims were confronted with a sense of psychic separation," Mubarak said.

"Our very sense of identity as Americans was seen with distrust."

Mubarak also said she and other Muslims began to realize they couldn't just blend into the culture. They had a responsibility to speak up and educate America about Islam, especially those who think Islam is inherently violent.