Willem A. Bijlefeld

Dr. Willem A. Bijlefeld

Dr. Willem A. Bijlefeld is professor emeritus at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Conn.

Fifty years ago, in June 1956, he attended in Lebanon an international meeting of Muslims and Christians discussing the prospects of establishing a "World Fellowship of Muslims and Christians." Ever since that moment, endeavors at both sides to bring about a deeper mutual understanding have been his primary concern and interest.

He received  his doctor of theology degree from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) in 1959. The next seven years he lived in Nigeria where he initiated what would become the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa and served  on the faculty of the University of Ibadan from 1964 till his departure to the U.S.A. in 1966. At Hartford Seminary he was academic dean from 1969 - 1974, director of the just established Duncan Black Macdonald Center from 1974 - 1986 and editor of The Muslim World vol. 57 - 82 (1967 - 1992).

In the late 70s and in the 80s he lectured at more than  40 universities, seminaries  and study conferences in Asia and Africa.  Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr once remarked that Dr. Bijlefeld has risen to the challenge of respecting "both the Christian and Islamic positions in the spirit of authentic ecumenism”.

Vincent Cornell

Dr. Vincent Cornell

Dr. Vincent Cornell is the Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic studies at Emory University. He received his Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1989. He has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Georgia and Duke University (nine years). From 2000-2006 he was professor of history and director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic studies at the University of Arkansas. His pre-modern interests cover the entire spectrum of Ilamic thought from Sufism to philosophy and Islamic law. 

Kenneth Cragg

Bishop Kenneth Cragg

Bishop Kenneth Cragg is a missionary bishop whose vision of Islam at peace with the world has inspired his readers and given them hope for the future. He learned Arabic as a missionary in Lebanon in 1939, under the British Syria Mission. He has taught at the American University, Beirut; Hartford Seminary, Conn.; and St. George’s College, Jerusalem. Biographer Christopher Lamb describes Cragg as constantly being "on the move, alerting Christian groups throughout the Middle East and beyond to the issues of Christian engagement with Islam and with Muslims.”

Frederick M. Denny

Dr. Frederick M. Denny

Dr. Frederick M. Denny recently retired as professor of Islamic studies and history of religions at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the editor of the University of South Carolina Press scholarly book series Studies in Comparative Religion. Denny's published works include An Introduction to Islam, Jews, Christians, Muslims: A Comparative Introduction to Monotheistic Religions. He co-edited (with Richard C. Foltz and Azizan Baharuddin) Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust as well as numerous articles on Islamic topics. His recent research and writing have been principally on Islam and Muslims in the contemporary world, with particular emphasis on human rights.

Workshop Presenters:

Ghulam Haider Aasi

Dr. Ghulam Haider Aasi

Scott Alexander

Mahmoud Ayoub

Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub

Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub was born in 1938 in south Lebanon. He is the author of works in English and Arabic on Islam and interreligious dialogue. The most notable are Redemptive Suffering in Islam and the multi-volume work, The Qur’an and Its Interpreters. He has published over 50 scholarly articles in books and in well-known academic journals. Two of his recent works are Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Politics in Early Islam, 2003, and Islam in Faith and History.
 

Marcia Hermansen

Dr. Marcia Hermansen

Dr. Marcia Hermansen is professor of theology at Loyola University Chicago where she teaches courses in Islamic Studies and World Religions. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Arabic and Islamic Studies. In the course of her research and language training she lived for extended periods in Egypt, Jordan, India, Iran, and Pakistan and she conducts research in Arabic, Persian and Urdu as well as the major European languages.

Aminah McCloud

Dr. Aminah McCloud

Aminah McCloud, associate professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University, is the author of four books, including "The Religion and Philosophy of the Nation of Islam," and "Immigrant American Islam." Dr. McCloud is a Fulbright Scholar, Islamic Legal Expert, and managing editor of The Journal of Islamic Law and Culture. She is the founder of the Islam in America Conference at DePaul University which houses The Journal of Islamic Law and Culture and the Islam in America Archives. She is a member of the Centre for Islamic Studies in Oxford, a board member of Iqra Foundation, a board member of "the Healing Project" at Boston University Hospital, and a consultant for various encyclopedia projects on Muslims in America and Islam. She has received grants for her work from the Ford Foundation, Illinois Humanities Council, Graham Architectural Foundation and the Lilly Foundation.

Roland Miller

Dr. Roland Miller

Dr. Roland Miller spent 23 years as a church worker in Kerala, India, 17 years as a university professor and dean in Regina, Canada, and six years as a teacher at a seminary in St. Paul, Minn. Now retired in Ottowa, Canada, Miller is engaged in writing and speaking, in the areas of Christian-Muslim relations. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Islamic studies from Hartford Seminary and is an ordained Lutheran minister. Miller is a recognized authority on the Mappila Muslims of Kerala, with whom he maintains close contact. He is currently preparing a new work on Mappila culture. His books include the popular Muslim Friends: Their Faith and Feeling and Muslims and the Gospel: Bridging the Gap.  

Ayesha Mustafaa

Ms. Ayesha Mustafaa

Ms. Ayesha Mustafaa is editor of the Muslim Journal, a weekly newspaper serving the Muslim community throughout the United States and abroad. The Journal --successor to the Muhammad Speaks newspaper started by Malcolm X -- took root in 1975 to continue the legacy of the Muslim African American community, to rectify misconceptions that grew out of old Nation of Islam teachings, and to broaden its scope to reflect the diverse racial and ethnic body of Muslims. She is a host on “RadioIslam,” a program on WCEV (Chicago’s Ethnic Voice), and has traveled to Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem and Rome as a speaker contributing to interreligious understanding. 

Robert Schreiter

Dr. Robert Schreiter

Dr. Robert Schreiter is internationally-recognized in the areas of inculturation and the world mission of the church. He is interested in how the gospel is communicated in different cultures and how a theology of reconciliation might shape missionary activity today. He is the Bernardin Center Vatican II Professor of Theology and Culture sponsored by the Edward Schillebeecx Foundation at the University of Nijmegen. His books include The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local and The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies.
 

Carol Schersten LaHurd

Dr. Carol Schersten LaHurd

Dr. Carol Schersten LaHurd lives in Chicago and is coordinator of 'Peace Not Walls.' the Middle East peace-making strategy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. LaHurd was professor of biblical studies and Islam at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. and recently taught at Fordham University in New York City. For eight years she taught at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She holds degrees from Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., and the University of Chicago. Her Ph.D. is in religious studies from the University of Pittsburgh. She has lived in Damascus, Syria, and San'a, Yemen, where she taught English as a second language and did research on women in Islam.

Lewis Scudder

Rev. Lewis Scudder

Rev. Lewis Scudder graduated from Western Theological Seminary and holds a masters degree from the American University of Beirut. He studied Islamics at McGill University and returned to the field as the first liaison officer in the Arab Gulf for the Middle East Council of Churches from 1981 to 1987. From 1994 to 2004 he served the MECC as editor of the council's English language publications and as special assistant to the General Secretary. He is now consultant to the Mission Services Unit of the Reformed Church in America. His Middle East base is in Cyprus.  

Dr. Mark Swanson

Dr. Mark Swanson joins the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago faculty July 1 as the first Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations. He was associate professor of Christian history and Islam and director of the Islamic Studies Program at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. From 1984 to 1998 he taught New Testament and Arabic Christian studies at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo. He holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome. His interests include the study of Arabic Christian literature and early Christian-Muslim encounters, and the history of the Egyptian Christian community in the Middle Ages.

Nelly van Doorn-Harder

Dr. Nelly van Doorn-Harder

Dr. Nelly van Doorn-Harder taught Islamic Studies in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, before joining the faculty of Valparaiso University in 1999. While in Indonesia, she helped initiate an Institute for the Study of Religion and Interfaith Relations. She was the director of a refugee agency in Cairo, Egypt and a lecturer in the Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She is a member of the Indonesia committee of the Oslo Coalition for Peace and Reconciliation, and of the interfaith research team of the Lutheran World Federation. Her book, A Band of Brave Believers: Indonesian Women Re-interpreting the Qu’ran, is forthcoming. 

Malika Zeghal

Dr. Malika Zeghal

Dr. Malika Zeghal is associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Before coming to Chicago she taught at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is one of the finest interpreters of what she calls "the complex historical mutation of the original religious nineteenth-century reform into politicized and fundamentalist versions of Islam" and of the very recent reform movements "toward a more liberal apprehension and practice of Islam."