The first sign of trouble was an email from a friend in Philadelphia wanting to know if the news report he’d read was true. This e-snowflake became a flurry and then a blizzard as similar queries piled up in Fahad Alhomoudi’s inbox.

Christians from Europe, Asia and the Middle East all wanted to know if Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the kingdom’s top official religious authority, had actually said that all the churches in the Gulf region should be destroyed.

They had turned to Alhomoudi because of a unique venture launched by this professor of Islamic law and religious studies. Alhomoudi, 39, is founder and president of the Western Studies Institute, the first non-governmental organization in Saudi Arabia dedicated to fostering cultural and religious dialogue between the West — particularly the United States — and the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.

In a recent interview, Alhomoudi said that the Institute’s mission “is to bridge Saudi Arabia and the Arab world with the United States and Western world in areas of mutual interest.” Such an endeavor is needed, he added, because of events that have “created hatred” between the two sides, such as the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. “We are trying to spread awareness of the importance of [mutual] understanding.”