IIIT AL FARUQI MEMORIAL RECEPTION AND LECTURE — 2024 ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION (AAR)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2024 | 7-9 PM PST | San Diego Convention Center | 14AB (Mezzanine Level) San Diego, California

Prof. Ismail R. al Faruqi

Professor Ismail Raji al Faruqi (1921-1986) was a co-founder of International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). Born in Jaffa, Palestine, he completed his undergraduate education from the American University in Beirut. He eventually relocated to the United States where he pursued graduate studies in philosophy. Prof. al Faruqi studied Islam at al Azhar University, Cairo, from 1954 to 1958. In 1968, he joined Temple University’s newly established Department of Religion and founded the Islamic Studies program there. In addition, in 1973, Prof. al Faruqi initiated the Islam section at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). He was also the President of the American Islamic College in Chicago.

His own intellectual and faith journey is apparent from his famous quote: “Until a few months ago, I was a Palestinian, an Arab, and a Muslim. Now I am a Muslim who happens to be an Arab from Palestine.”

Prof. al Faruqi was an exceptional scholar of Islam and comparative religions who was trained at Indiana University, Harvard University, and McGill University. He was among the pioneers who represented Islam in interreligious dialogue when this movement was just beginning. Indeed, he was a scholar who engaged with not only the history of religion but also the challenges religion, especially Islam, faced in contemporary times. Prof. al Faruqi authored, with his wife Dr. Lamya al Faruqi – a distinguished scholar of Islamic art – the seminal work titled The Cultural Atlas of Islam. His many publications include Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of its Dominant Ideas (McGill University Press, 1967) and Al Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life (IIIT, 1982).

He was – and still is seen as – a brilliant intellectual, whose legacy of reform and scholastic efforts still reverberate today and will continue to do so. May God have mercy on him. Ameen.

Moderator

Dr. Zaid Adhami

Dr. Zaid Adhami is assistant professor of Religion at Williams College, and author of the forthcoming Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith.

Dr. Hatem Bazian

Dr. Hatem Bazian is a decolonial scholar that centers Islam’s epistemology in all his work and examines the contemporary world through a Global South lens. Dr. Bazian is known as an organic intellectual, a term used for scholars who directly connect their work and scholarship to people and not confined to academia’s constructed walls of separation. Dr. Bazian is an author of five books, which include Erasing the Human: The Collapse of the Postcolonial World and the Immigration Refugee Crisis and Palestine … it is something colonial; numerous chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, hundreds of press articles, along with constant academic contributions and engagement across the globe. Dr. Bazian is a leading scholar in the Islamophobia Studies field and has founded the Islamophobia Studies Center. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Islamophobia Studies Journal as well as co-founder and current President of the International Islamophobia Studies and Research Association (IISRA).

Dr. Bazian is a senior lecturer in the Departments of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Also, Dr. Bazian is a co-founder of Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college and a retired member of the faculty. Between 2002-2007, Dr. Bazian served as an adjunct professor of law at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to Berkeley, Dr. Bazian served as a visiting professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California (2001-2007) and adviser to the Religion, Politics, and Globalization Center at UC Berkeley.

At the community level, Dr. Bazian is the President of the Northern California Islamic Council, co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine, and Chairman of the Board of Muslim Legal Fund for America.

Title and Abstract:

Palestine from Columbus’ Crusade to Herzl’s Zionism and Settler Colonialism

The talk will explore the historical trajectory of Palestine from the era of Columbus’ voyages to find an alternative route to India for the purpose of retaking Jerusalem to the rise of Herzl’s Zionism sponsored by Western expansionism and colonial divide and rule discourses in the region. It will frame the region’s narrative within the broader context of settler colonialism rather than the misleading orientalist and reductionist lens presently at work. By examining the intersections of European early “exploration” of imperial ambitions and the emergence of Zionism, a colonially sponsored movement, the study highlights how supremacist ideologies shaped the modern history of Palestine. It critically analyzes the impact of early European exploration that was motivated by a Crusading epistemic and the subsequent 18th through 20th century political, economic, and theological shifts leading to the current Zionist movement and the unfolding genocide in Palestine. The talk argues that European and American ideological, theological, and political developments laid the groundwork for the ongoing genocide and its continued support among Western elites with the Palestinian indigenous struggle for land, freedom, and sovereignty being pushed aside in Palestine. Through a multidisciplinary lens, including historical, political, economic, theological, and media perspectives, this work contributes to a deeper understanding of the Palestinian quest for freedom from the Western imposition of Zionism, the role played by Christian Zionism, and the complexities and the legacies of colonialism that inform, fund, and defend the genocide today.