Afternoon 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Understanding the Muslim World
There are no more seats available for this series
September 17
Islam as an Abrahamic Faith: A Continuity or Contrast
Idrisa Pandit, Renison College, University of Waterloo
Idrisa Pandit is the Director of the University for Waterloo's Studies in Islam program. In her work and study, Idrisa combines her interest in interfaith dialogue, issues of social justice and community building.
Idrisa is a member of Interfaith Grand River and the founder of Muslim Social Services of Kitchener Waterloo. For her bridge building and interfaith work, Idrisa was named in 2008 by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, as one of the top twenty Muslim women who inspire.
Islam as an Abrahamic Faith: A Continuity or Contrast
Idrisa Pandit, Renison College, University of Waterloo
Idrisa Pandit is the Director of the University for Waterloo's Studies in Islam program. In her work and study, Idrisa combines her interest in interfaith dialogue, issues of social justice and community building.
Idrisa is a member of Interfaith Grand River and the founder of Muslim Social Services of Kitchener Waterloo. For her bridge building and interfaith work, Idrisa was named in 2008 by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, as one of the top twenty Muslim women who inspire.
September 24
Introduction to Islam: Rituals, Quran, Sharia Law
Iftikhar Sheikh, Multi-Faith Resource Team, University of Guelph
Iftikhar Sheikh was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Canada 50 years ago. After living in Montreal for 10 years, he moved to Guelph and has been here for the last 40 years.
He is a member of the Multi faith Resource team at the University of Guelph . He is also involved with spiritual care at Guelph General hospital and St Josephs.
Introduction to Islam: Rituals, Quran, Sharia Law
Iftikhar Sheikh, Multi-Faith Resource Team, University of Guelph
Iftikhar Sheikh was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Canada 50 years ago. After living in Montreal for 10 years, he moved to Guelph and has been here for the last 40 years.
He is a member of the Multi faith Resource team at the University of Guelph . He is also involved with spiritual care at Guelph General hospital and St Josephs.
October 1
Sectarian Islam: The Origins and Ramifications of the Sunni/Shi'a Split
Liyakat Takim, McMaster University
Professor Liyakat Takim is the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam at McMaster University.
A native of Zanzibar, Tanzania, he has spoken at more than eighty academic conferences and authored one hundred scholarly works on diverse topics like reformation in the Islamic world, the treatment of women in Islamic law, Islam in America, the indigenization of the Muslim community in America, dialogue in post-911 America, war and peace in the Islamic tradition, Islamic law, Islamic biographical literature, the charisma of the holy man and shrine culture, and Islamic mystical traditions. He teaches a wide range of courses on Islam and offers a course on comparative religions.
Professor Takim’s second book titled Shi'ism in America was published by New York University Press in summer 2009. His first book, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi‘ite Islam was published by SUNY press in 2006. He is currently working on his third book, Ijtihad and Reformation in Islam.
Professor Takim has taught at several American and Canadian universities and is actively engaged in dialogue with different faith communities.
Sectarian Islam: The Origins and Ramifications of the Sunni/Shi'a Split
Liyakat Takim, McMaster University
Professor Liyakat Takim is the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam at McMaster University.
A native of Zanzibar, Tanzania, he has spoken at more than eighty academic conferences and authored one hundred scholarly works on diverse topics like reformation in the Islamic world, the treatment of women in Islamic law, Islam in America, the indigenization of the Muslim community in America, dialogue in post-911 America, war and peace in the Islamic tradition, Islamic law, Islamic biographical literature, the charisma of the holy man and shrine culture, and Islamic mystical traditions. He teaches a wide range of courses on Islam and offers a course on comparative religions.
Professor Takim’s second book titled Shi'ism in America was published by New York University Press in summer 2009. His first book, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi‘ite Islam was published by SUNY press in 2006. He is currently working on his third book, Ijtihad and Reformation in Islam.
Professor Takim has taught at several American and Canadian universities and is actively engaged in dialogue with different faith communities.
October 8
Religion, Culture and Politics in Pakistan: Sociological and Personal Reflections
Ali Zaidi, Wilfred Laurier University
Dr. Ali Zaidi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies and a co-Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Option at Wilfrid Laurier University. A social theorist interested in questions of religion, secularism, globalization and modernity, he engages with the assumptions underlying both social scientific knowledge and religious knowledge of the human condition.
His book Islam, Modernity and the Human Sciences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) undertook a comparative analysis of Western and Muslim debates about social knowledge and the truth-claims that are made from religious and secular points of view. Currently, he is working on issues related to Qur’anic hermeneutics, secularism and blasphemy. His work has appeared in Theory, Culture and Society, International Sociology and the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
In winter 2013, he was a Visiting Professor in Pakistan at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Previously, he spent a term in 2008 as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden, The Netherlands, and in 2006 he was an Invited Junior Fellow at the Summer Academy on ‘Islam and the Repositioning of Religion’, at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany.
Dr. Zaidi’s teaching focuses on cultural pluralism and intercultural understanding.
Religion, Culture and Politics in Pakistan: Sociological and Personal Reflections
Ali Zaidi, Wilfred Laurier University
Dr. Ali Zaidi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies and a co-Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Option at Wilfrid Laurier University. A social theorist interested in questions of religion, secularism, globalization and modernity, he engages with the assumptions underlying both social scientific knowledge and religious knowledge of the human condition.
His book Islam, Modernity and the Human Sciences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) undertook a comparative analysis of Western and Muslim debates about social knowledge and the truth-claims that are made from religious and secular points of view. Currently, he is working on issues related to Qur’anic hermeneutics, secularism and blasphemy. His work has appeared in Theory, Culture and Society, International Sociology and the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
In winter 2013, he was a Visiting Professor in Pakistan at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Previously, he spent a term in 2008 as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden, The Netherlands, and in 2006 he was an Invited Junior Fellow at the Summer Academy on ‘Islam and the Repositioning of Religion’, at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany.
Dr. Zaidi’s teaching focuses on cultural pluralism and intercultural understanding.
October 15
Extremism and Counter-Extremism in the Muslim world. A view from within.
Miloud Chennoufi, Canadian Forces College.
Dr. Miloud Chennoufi holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Montreal. He is a professor at the Canadian Forces College (Toronto) where he teaches graduate courses in international relations and Middle-Eastern politics to selected Canadian and international Military officers.
He is the author of “Grandes puissances et islamisme.”
During the 1990s he served as a professional political journalist in Algeria.
Extremism and Counter-Extremism in the Muslim world. A view from within.
Miloud Chennoufi, Canadian Forces College.
Dr. Miloud Chennoufi holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Montreal. He is a professor at the Canadian Forces College (Toronto) where he teaches graduate courses in international relations and Middle-Eastern politics to selected Canadian and international Military officers.
He is the author of “Grandes puissances et islamisme.”
During the 1990s he served as a professional political journalist in Algeria.
October 22: There is no lecture on this date.
October 29
Cultural Translation
Soheila Esfahani, University of Waterloo
Ms. Soheila K. Esfahani grew up in Tehran, Iran, and moved to Canada in 1992. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario.
Currently, Soheila is a participant in a research/creation group entitled Immersion Emergencies and Possible Worlds: Engaging Water as Culture and Resource through Contemporary Art, funded by Research/Creation Grant in Fine Arts through Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Soheila has received numerous awards and grants and her work is represented in public and private collections including the Canada Council’s Art Bank.
Ms. Esfahani’s art practice incorporates traditional Persian script within a modern composition. In her work, the mystical concepts of transformations, spirituality, and alchemy are manifest through the meaning of poems by Persian poet, Rumi.
Cultural Translation
Soheila Esfahani, University of Waterloo
Ms. Soheila K. Esfahani grew up in Tehran, Iran, and moved to Canada in 1992. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario.
Currently, Soheila is a participant in a research/creation group entitled Immersion Emergencies and Possible Worlds: Engaging Water as Culture and Resource through Contemporary Art, funded by Research/Creation Grant in Fine Arts through Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Soheila has received numerous awards and grants and her work is represented in public and private collections including the Canada Council’s Art Bank.
Ms. Esfahani’s art practice incorporates traditional Persian script within a modern composition. In her work, the mystical concepts of transformations, spirituality, and alchemy are manifest through the meaning of poems by Persian poet, Rumi.
November 5
Women and Gender in Islam: Women's Religious Authority
Laury Silvers, University of Toronto
Dr. Silvers received a PhD in Comparative Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and currently teaches Islam-related courses in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto.
Her areas of research and teaching are on Islam in the Formative Period, in particular Sufism, Sufi Metaphysics and Gender, and Progressive Islam in North America. Dr. Silvers has published extensively in these areas and has several articles in progress. Her book “A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism” was released in 2010 by SUNY Press.
Dr. Silvers helped to found and is Co-Chair of The Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion.
Women and Gender in Islam: Women's Religious Authority
Laury Silvers, University of Toronto
Dr. Silvers received a PhD in Comparative Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and currently teaches Islam-related courses in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto.
Her areas of research and teaching are on Islam in the Formative Period, in particular Sufism, Sufi Metaphysics and Gender, and Progressive Islam in North America. Dr. Silvers has published extensively in these areas and has several articles in progress. Her book “A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism” was released in 2010 by SUNY Press.
Dr. Silvers helped to found and is Co-Chair of The Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion.
November 12
Islam and Globalization: Identity, Diversity and Modernity
Eid Mohamed, University of Guelph
Dr. Eid Mohamed received his masters and doctorate from George Washington University in the USA, where he specialized in Middle Eastern Studies, modern Arab history and culture, and US-Middle East encounters.
In 2011, and directly after completing his Ph.D., Mohamed was hired as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the State University of New York in Binghamton to teach, and help develop the center for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA). In 2012, he was a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Centre and a visiting assistant professor at Qatar University.
Currently, Mohamed is a research fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo, and an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph in Canada. His teaching and research are chiefly cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, dealing with society vs. culture, and text vs. visuality.
Author of many published journal articles, he has given numerous lectures at academic and professional meetings, and his forthcoming book "Arab Occidentalism: Images of America in the Middle East," will be released by I.B. Tauris this year.
Islam and Globalization: Identity, Diversity and Modernity
Eid Mohamed, University of Guelph
Dr. Eid Mohamed received his masters and doctorate from George Washington University in the USA, where he specialized in Middle Eastern Studies, modern Arab history and culture, and US-Middle East encounters.
In 2011, and directly after completing his Ph.D., Mohamed was hired as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the State University of New York in Binghamton to teach, and help develop the center for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA). In 2012, he was a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Centre and a visiting assistant professor at Qatar University.
Currently, Mohamed is a research fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo, and an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph in Canada. His teaching and research are chiefly cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, dealing with society vs. culture, and text vs. visuality.
Author of many published journal articles, he has given numerous lectures at academic and professional meetings, and his forthcoming book "Arab Occidentalism: Images of America in the Middle East," will be released by I.B. Tauris this year.
