Voices of Islam (176 page)

Authors: Vincent J. Cornell

BOOK: Voices of Islam

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VINCENT J. CORNELL is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory University. From 2000 to 2006, he was Professor of History and Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. From 1991 to 2000, he taught at Duke University. Dr. Cornell has published two major books,
The Way of Abu Madyan
(Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996) and
Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism
(Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998), and over 30 articles. His interests cover the entire spectrum of Islamic thought from Sufi to theology and Islamic law. He has lived and worked in Morocco for nearly six years and has spent considerable time both teaching and doing research in Egypt, Tunisia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. He is currently working on projects on Islamic ethics and moral theology in conjunction with the Shalom Hartmann Institute and the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Jerusalem. For the past fi years (2002–2006), he has been a key participant in the Building Bridges Seminars hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

VIRGINIA GRAY HENRY-BLAKEMORE is the director of the interfaith publishing houses Fons Vitae and Quinta Essentia. She is a writer and video producer under contract with the Book Foundation, U.S. director of photography and children’s book publisher Dar Nun, and cofounder and trustee of the Islamic Texts Society of Cambridge, England. She is an accom- plished lecturer in art history, world religions, and filmmaking. She has taught at Fordham University, Cairo American College, and Cambridge University. She is also a founding member of the Thomas Merton Center Foundation. Virginia Gray Henry-Blakemore received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, studied at the American University in Cairo and Al- Azhar University, earned her MA in Education from the University of Mich- igan, served as Research Fellow at Cambridge University from 1983 to 1990, and is scheduled to receive her PhD from Canterbury, Kent, in 2008.

238 About the Editors and Contributors

SARWAR ALAM received his doctorate in Public Administration from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, in 2006. He previously obtained baccalaureate and postbaccalaureate degrees in Political Science from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. He also obtained a postgraduate diploma in Development Planning from the Academy for Planning and Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and an MA in Human Resource Develop- ment from Pittsburg State University, Kansas. As a civil servant and magis- trate in Bangladesh, he worked in the ministries of education, cabinet division, and women’s and children’s affairs.

JANE FATIMA CASEWIT holds graduate degrees in education and works on the USAID education team in Rabat, Morocco. Her lifelong interests and personal studies have centered on Islam, comparative religions, and perennial philosophy. She has written several articles on gender and Islam and has translated books about Muslims living on the periphery of Dar al-Islam. Two of the books she has translated are
Islam in Tibet: Tibetan Caravans
by Abdul Wahid Radhu and
The Life and Teaching of Tierno Bokar
by Amadou Hampate´ Ba.

RKIA ELAROUI CORNELL is Senior Lecturer in Arabic at Emory University. For the previous six years (2000–2006), she was Research Associate Professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. A native of Morocco, she obtained a degree in secondary education from the Women’s Regional Normal School in Mekne`s, Morocco, and finished an eight-year contract with the Moroccan Ministry of Education. From 1991 to 2000, she was Assistant Professor of the Practice of Arabic at Duke University. In 1999, she published
Early Sufi Women
(Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae), a translation of an early work about Sufi omen by the Persian mystic Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 1021
CE
). Cornell has given numerous lectures and conference presentations on the subjects of Qur’anic exegesis, women in Islam, and language pedagogy. She is currently preparing a book on the woman saint Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya and an advanced reader in premodern Arabic literature.

SUSAN L. DOUGLASS writes and researches in the fields of education and curriculum development and designs instructional materials for public and private schools. She earned an MA in Arabic Studies from Georgetown University and is presently working on a PhD at George Mason University. She has published several books and over a dozen teaching resource collec- tions as curriculum specialist for the Council on Islamic Education. She is a regular contributor to the online world history curriculum,
World History for Us All,
supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and San Diego State University. She authored the report,
Teaching About

About the Editors and Contributors
239

Religion in National and State Social Studies Standards
(Council on Islamic Education and First Amendment Center, 2000), and was the general editor for the textbook,
World Eras: The Rise and Spread of Islam, 622-1500
(Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thompson/Gale Publishers, 2002).

SEEMI BUSHRA GHAZI
is Lecturer in Classical Arabic at the University of British Columbia. She majored in Religion and Intercultural Studies at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and pursued further studies at the University of Chicago, the American University in Cairo, and Duke University. Her recitations of the Qur’an and of devotional music in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu have been featured on PBS, BBC, and CBC. She is active in the Muslim, Sufi, and Interfaith communities of Vancouver, British Columbia, and is a founding board member of the InterSpiritual Centre Society of Vancouver.

KENNETH LEE HONERKAMP
is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia, Athens. He is a graduate of al-Qarawiyyin University in Morocco and obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Aix-en-Provence in France. His research interests are in the fields of teacher–disciple relationships in formative Sufi Islamic law, Qur’anic sciences, and the study and translation of letters of spiritual guidance written by Moroccan Sufi He has edited and translated several previously unpublished works of Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 1021
CE
). His critical edition of
al-Rasa’il al-Kubra
of the Spanish Sufi Ibn ‘Abbad of Ronda (d. 1390
CE
) was published by Dar el-Machreq, Lebanon, in 2005.

DANIEL ABDAL-HAYY MOORE
is a widely regarded American Muslim poet. His fi book of poems,
Dawn Visions,
was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books in San Francisco (1964). He became a Sufi Muslim in 1970, performed the Hajj in 1972, and lived and traveled in Morocco, Spain, Algeria, and Nigeria. Upon his return to California, he published
The Desert is the Only Way Out
in 1985 and
Chronicles of Akhira
in 1986. A resident of Philadelphia since 1990, he has published
The Ramadan Sonnets
(1996) and
The Blind Beekeeper
(2002). He has also been the major editor for a number of works, including
The Burda of Shaykh Busiri
(2003), translated by Hamza Yusuf, and
State of Siege
(2004), the poetry of the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Munir Akash.

FEISAL ABDUL RAUF
is the Founder and Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, a multi-faith organization whose objective is to heal the relation- ship between the Muslim World and the West. He is also the Founder of

240 About the Editors and Contributors

ASMA Society (American Society for Muslim Advancement), serves as the Imam of Masjid Al-Farah in New York City, and is an active member of the World Economic Forum’s C-100, which works to promote understanding and dialogue between the Western and the Islamic worlds. He was recently awarded the Peacebuilder Award by the Alliance for International Confl

Prevention and Resolution. Imam Feisal frequently interviews with various media and has appeared on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and BBC. His published writings include
Islam: A Search for Meaning
and
Islam: A Sacred Law.
His latest book,
What’s Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West,
was chosen by the
Christian Science Monitor
as one of the top four nonfiction books of 2004.

KRISTIN ZAHRA SANDS is Mellon Fellow and Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and Research Scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media. Her research interests include Sufi religion and suffering, and Islam and the media. She is the author of
Sufi Commentaries on the Qur’an in Classical Islam
(Oxford: Routledge, 2005).

ALIAH SCHLEIFER completed her PhD at Exeter University in the United Kingdom. Her thesis was the basis for her second book,
Mary: Blessed Virgin of Islam
. Her fi book,
Motherhood in Islam,
was a response to the absence of defi tive literature for American Muslim women seeking guidance in their lives as wives and mothers and to offset the denigration of motherhood that is fashionable in certain circles in the West. She taught from 1974 until her death in 1995 at the American University in Cairo, where she received her master’s degree in Islamic and Arabic studies. She was born in New York City and received her BA from Barnard College in Spanish Language Studies. She worked as a coordinator for an antipoverty program prior to her embracing Islam and traveling with her husband and children to the Middle East. She lived in Jordanian Jerusalem (before 1967), Amman, Beirut, and finally Cairo.

ABDULKADER THOMAS is President and CEO of SHAPE Financial Corporation of Arlington, Virginia, and Kuwait. A graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in International Trade, Thomas earned a BA with honors in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago and is an Islamic banking consultant. He is currently a PhD candidate in the International Center for Education in Islamic Finance in Malaysia. He is known for his regulatory work in the United States and the United Kingdom and is a frequent speaker and author on Islamic financial and banking matters. His recent books include
Islamic Bonds: Your Guide to Issuing, Structuring and Investing in Sukuk
with Nathif Adam (London:

About the Editors and Contributors
241

Euromoney, 2004),
Structuring Islamic Financial Transactions
with Stella Cox and Bryan Kraty (London: Euromoney, 2005), and
Interest in Islamic Economics: Understanding Riba
(Oxford: Routledge, 2005).

NARGIS VIRANI
is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the New School in New York City. She earned her PhD from Harvard University. During the course of her Arabic Studies, she studied at the University of Jordan in Amman, the Bourguiba Institute in Tunis, and Al-Azhar University in Cairo. At Al-Azhar she studied the Qur’an under the Shaykh of Al-Azhar and holds a
shahada
(certificate) and an
ijaza
(per- mission to teach the Qur’an) from the Shaykh. Dr. Virani is currently revising and expanding her dissertation on the relationship between Jalaluddin Rumi’s multilingual verses and his mystical discourse. She is also working on a second monograph analyzing the use of the Qur’an in Muslim literary writings.

V
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