YouTube Live: https://youtu.be/vUYih__1Nhk
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/americanislamiccollege/live
Dates: Every Saturday during Ramadan (April 25, May 2, May 9, May 16)
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm each day (Central Time)
Where: Online live stream
Watch previous workshops here.
Dr. Talaat Pasha holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Linguistics from the University of Utah, MA in theoretical linguistics from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), BA in English language and literature from Egypt and BA in Islamic Studies and Chaplaincy from the renowned Al-Azhar University, Egypt. Dr. Pasha has taught and lectured at several universities in Egypt, University of Illinois, University of Utah, Middlebury College, Henry Ford College, University of Bahrain, and University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. He is currently the director of the Arabic Language Institute at the American Islamic College in Chicago.
Dr. Pasha’s teaching interest is Arabic language, Arabic syntax, morphology, and rhetoric, Arabic linguistics, and critical discourse analysis. The courses Dr. Pasha has taught include the following: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Readings In Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic, Introduction To Sociolinguistics, Introduction To Linguistics, Current Issues In Arabic, Strategies Of Teaching Writing In Arabic, Strategies Of Teaching Reading Arabic.
Dr. Pasha ’s research focuses on critical discourse analysis, language and ideology, Arabic language and linguistics, pedagogy of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL). Dr. Pasha has a forthcoming book by I.B. Tauris, The (Mis) Representation of Islamism: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Egyptian Newspapersˆ.
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Time: 6:00 pm Light Refreshments; 6:30 pm Talk
Where: Conference Room, Main Bldg, American Islamic College
Believers Bail Out is a volunteer-led effort that posts bail for Muslims brothers and sisters that are held in pretrial and immigrant incarceration using zakat. We seek to create sustainable change by focusing on three areas of concern: prison industrial complex, anti-Muslim racism, and anti-blackness. Join us to learn more about these concepts with Dr. Maryam Kashani, founder and assistant professor of gender and women’s studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“And do you realize what is the steep road? It is the freeing of a human being from bondage” (The Holy Qur’an 90:12-13)
To Volunteer with Believers Bail Out:
If you are interested in helping out our cause and would like to volunteer, join us to learn more about the structure of BBO and how you can help! Sign up on the 31st of March to receive more details!
Maryam Kashani is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Trained as an anthropologist and filmmaker, she is currently working on a book manuscript drawn from her ethnographic fieldwork and filmmaking at Zaytuna College and with Muslim communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Medina by the Bay will examine Muslim knowledge practices and institution-building in relation to issues of gender, race, visuality, and displacement, telling an interrelated story of American Muslim subject-making and dueling discourses of wealth and poverty, dissent and assimilation. Her films and video installations have been exhibited at festivals, universities, and museums internationally. Visit http://www.maryamkashani.com/ for details on her projects.
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Time: 6:00 pm Light Refreshments; 6:30 pm Talk
Where: Conference Room, Main Bldg, American Islamic College
The Kashmir conflict has been on the world’s conscience for over 7 decades. The conflict, which started out as a political justice issue, devolved into a human rights morass, especially in the last 3 decades. At the same time, this issue has been one of the 2 major sources of what has been euphemistically labeled as the Muslim angst. There are national security implications for the US as well, as the road to peace in Afghanistan.
Rizwan’s family has been living in Kashmir for centuries. Like most Kashmiris, he is a strong proponent of racial harmony and achieving peace through education and commerce.
Rizwan Kadir is a former member of the MCC Board and a past Chairman of the MCC Academy. Currently, he is Director of Sabeel Center, an IFANCA initiative community center in Des Plaines.
Previously, he has been a senior management consultant to Fortune 100 companies in the areas of strategic planning, governance, and financial management. He has MBA (finance) from the University of Chicago. He started his career with an investment bank and later rose to Director and C-level positions, including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer at an investment firm.
Rizwan has an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Chicago, where he also completed PhD-level coursework in quantitative finance. He is a parent at Northwestern, where he received his undergraduate education also. He also designed an entrepreneurship course for high school students at Northwestern’s Center for Talent Development.
A firm proponent of servant leadership, he has served in leadership roles in Muslim, Pakistani, and Kashmiri communities, with a signature flair for passionate and analytical presentations, coupled with a dose of humor.
Kadir speaks on financial, international, and inter-faith topics at professional forums and has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, MSNBC, CAIR, ISNA, Religion News Service, Voice of America, and the local media. Besides, inter-faith presentations, he routinely gives talks on topics such as Islamic Schools in the US , Endowments for Islamic Organizations, The Impact of 9/11 on American Muslims, and among others.
Since 9/11, he has been an invited speaker and presenter to inter-faith dialogs with Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist audiences. Rizwan also speaks on financial, geo-political, and inter-faith topics at professional forums, such as the International Press Club of Chicago, and has been interviewed by MSNBC, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Religion News Service, Voice of America, as well as the local media.
About this Event
A joint conference with the Michigan State University Department of Psychiatry, Institute for Muslim Mental Health, Khalil Center, and American Islamic College
This unique conference brings together scholars, faith leaders, healthcare providers and researchers to
examine topics related to mental health across the Muslim community. It will include keynote speakers, scholarly research presentations and panel discussions. Note that there will be parallel tracks, one for Islamic Psychology and one for General Muslim Mental Health.
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2020
Time: 7:00 pm
Where: Auditorium, Main Bldg, American Islamic College
Panelists:
Sajida Jalalzai, Kayla Wheeler, Shehnaz Haqqani, Kecia Ali, Juliane Hammer, Shabana Mir
Panelists will address these questions and related questions from the audience:
Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator, American Islamic College
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator at American Islamic College. She teaches Islamic Studies, Gender Studies, and Research Methods. She is the author of the award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity, published by the University of North Carolina Press (2014). The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Association for Ethnic Studies and the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association (2014).
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Associate Professor, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Trained in the study of Islam, languages, and pre-modern as well as modern Muslim societies, my scholarly trajectory has taken me from research on Palestinian women and diaspora and return experiences through a decade of work on American Muslim communities intersecting with women, gender and sexuality in contemporary Muslim contexts. I see myself in both Islamic studies and American religions, and in conversation with women’s and gender studies, sexuality studies and critical race theory. I have combined ethnographic and textual analysis methods in diverse research contexts and engage in interdisciplinary, multi-method research that does not privilege texts over lived experiences or vice versa.
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Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies, Grand Valley State University
I am an Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. I received my PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa in May 2017. I have an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa, an M.A. in Islam and the West from Queen Mary, University of London and an M.A. in Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University.
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Professor of Religion, Boston University
Kecia Ali (Ph.D., Religion, Duke University) teaches a range of classes on Islam. Her research focuses on Islamic law; women and gender; ethics; and biography. Her books include Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006, expanded ed. 2016), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (2010), Imam Shafi‘i: Scholar and Saint (2011), and The Lives of Muhammad (2014), about modern Muslim and non-Muslim biographies of Islam’s prophet. She co-edited the revised edition of A Guide for Women in Religion, which provides guidance for careers in religious studies and theology (2014). Her research also includes gender, ethics, and popular culture.
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Assistant Professor, Trinity University
Sajida Jalalzai joins the Religion Department as Assistant Professor after holding an equivalent position for two years at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University and a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from McGill University, and she received her Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University. She specializes in North American Religions with a focus on Islam and is currently engaged in studying chaplaincy programs for Muslim students housed at Protestant seminaries. In addition to being a religious studies scholar, she is a musician with interests ranging from opera to digital music.
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Assistant Professor of Religion, Mercer University
My specialty is religion and gender, with a strong focus on Islam. Prior to joining the Mercer faculty, I was a Dissertation Diversity Fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies at Ithaca College in upstate New York.
Teaching at Ithaca College solidified my interest in teaching. I have many passions, and teaching surpasses them all. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to make a career out of a passion.
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Dear AIC students, faculty, staff, and wider community:
As-salaamu ‘alaykum.
American Islamic College has kept a careful watch upon unfolding events and remains vigilant in monitoring the CONTINUING Covid-19 pandemic. After much consultation and in cooperation with the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) and the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), we have extended our emergency shift from face-to-face, on site education to online/remote learning for the duration of the fall semester (August-December, 2021). The College (including the library) will remain open so that students can consult the administration and use the collection and computers for their research. Students are also welcome to use campus computers to attend their Zoom classes if they do not have the tools or internet access at home. We are confident that there will be no lapse in the quality of course content or standards during this period of emergency.
Our commitment to your well-being remains paramount, and so we urge you to contact us if you experience problems or complications as a result of this pandemic arrangement. Be assured that health, wellness, and safety guidelines are strictly observed at the College. More information on this can be found here.
AIC is committed to science-based, medically approved practices that safeguard the health and safety of everyone at the College and within the wider community. Vaccination is thus strongly encouraged and both mask-wearing and social distancing are required whenever anyone is on campus. This includes the dormitories and the masjid or prayer hall. Individuals who choose not to be vaccinated for any reason (medical, religious, or other) are urged to be especially meticulous in their mask wearing, social distancing, and hygiene (esp. hand washing), and we recommend that they voluntarily get themselves tested on a weekly basis as an extra precautionary measure.
For additional campus guidelines, visit: aicusa.edu/news/campus-guidelines-covid-19
Let us pray for those suffering from the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak: persons who have contracted the illness, families that have been separated due to quarantine measures, people traumatized by the anxiety and panic caused by the pandemic, and all those suffering in silence (including migrants, refugees, and the homeless). Let us hold them all in our supplications for protection, healing, and competent care.
With prayers for God’s peace, protection and blessing to be upon you all,
Timothy Gianotti
President
Those with questions and concerns about COVID-19 (coronavirus) can call the Illinois Department of Public Health at 800-889-3931.
On Sunday, Feb. 23rd, American Islamic College held a Film Screening of the heart-wrenching documentary, The Cave, which follows Dr. Amani Ballour and her team into the subterranean, makeshift Syrian hospital in the heart of besieged Eastern Al Ghouta.
Dr. Nour Akhras, a dedicated physician of Syrian origins, led a robust discussion following the screening. Dr. Akhras has been involved in relief medicine since the Syrian crisis began in 2011; she’s treated Syrian refugees in Turkey and Greece and is calling for the world’s attention on Idlib and the genocide taking place in Syria. Dr. Akhras is a board member of MedGlobal, which serves communities around the world who need humanitarian and medical assistance.
A member of the audience asked what could be done. Dr. Akhras replied:,
Location: Auditorium, Main Building
Date & Time: February 23, 2020 at 2:00pm; discussion to follow
Address: 640 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago, IL 60613
Parking: Located at 640 W Irving Park Rd
and 613 W Bittersweet Pl (rear of main building)
Nour Akhras is a board-certified pediatric infectious diseases physician and mother of four young children. Akhras has been involved in relief medicine since the inception of the Syrian crisis in 2011 and have traveled to Turkey and Greece to treat Syrian refugee children. Her most recent medical mission was to war-torn Yemen in September of 2018.
MedGlobal is a young NGO that started in August of 2018. Since then, they have served over 150,000 patients in 14 countries. They are dedicated to creating a world without healthcare disparity.
Learn more about MedGlobal here.
Over the past eight years, the war in Syria has spread death, destruction and horror across the country, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and displacing millions. In besieged Eastern Al Ghouta, incessant bombardment has turned the landscape into an eerie wasteland dotted with bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble. Going outside is a life-threatening proposition, but residential neighborhoods are targeted as indiscriminately as markets, schools and other places. Hospitals, medical centers and ambulances are also fair game for the Assad government and its Russian allies.
Al Ghouta, Syria – Dr. Amani (center) and Dr Alaa (right) in the operating room. (National Geographic)
Safety and hope lie underground, where a brave group of doctors and nurses have established a subterranean hospital called the Cave. Under the leadership of a young female pediatrician, Dr. Amani Ballour, the Cave offers hope and healing to the sick and injured children and civilians of Eastern Al Ghouta. In a conservative patriarchal society that devalues women, Dr. Amani is frequently subject to hostility from men who refuse to see her as a capable physician. But Dr. Amani doesn’t back down, and inside the Cave, women have reclaimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts. They risk their lives to save their patients and find ways to persevere in a world of cruelty, injustice and suffering. For Dr. Amani and her colleagues Samaher and Dr. Alaa, their battle is not only to survive but to maintain their dreams and hopes for their country and for women.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Artist of the Beautiful,” the watchmaker Owen creates a beautiful mechanical butterfly as a gift for his childhood friend, Annie, now a wife and mother. She is astonished as the creature flutters forth from a carved box, exclaiming, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Is it alive? Is it alive?” When the creature alights on her finger, she turns to Owen and says, “Is it alive? Tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it.” Owen replies, “Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?” Later on, an imprudent boy cruelly destroys the insect.
While I was filming “Last Men in Aleppo,” we kept focus on the military targeting of hospitals over a few years. Hospitals were demolished. Medics as well as patients were killed. The systematic targeting of hospitals was used as revenge, intimidation and a method to create chaos and force citizens to flee. No international countermeasures were introduced to stop these barbaric and vengeful attacks.
Al Ghouta, Syria – Dr. Salim. (National Geographic)
It became impossible for the health sector to exist on the surface, so hospitals were built underground. I was able to visit a number of them, and it was astonishing to witness the human ingenuity at work. These hospitals became the only hope for people to survive and receive treatment. And they provided a place where men and women could work together. In fact, these limited underground spaces might be the only places where women can work.
In the Cave, I witnessed how these female doctors and nurses are fighting to reclaim their rights in these subterranean hospitals. They stand up for themselves, which is something they couldn’t do aboveground in the patriarchal culture surrounding them. These women are truly an inspiration to me, and I believe with this film they will inspire the world as well — contributing to breaking the silence of the outside world. If the silence toward the brutality isn’t broken and if no measures are taken against war crimes, then there is a problem in man’s universal claim to possess the rights of freedom, law and justice.
The current time in history is frightening because people are keener to glorify power. Like Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful,” I wanted this film to be poetic — a film that helps us to look into the darkest corners of our souls and to inspire us to search for the light.
— Feras Fayyad
About this Event
Location: Lutheran School of Theology
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2020
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Address: 1100 E 55th St, Chicago, IL 60615
Silk Road Rising recently released Obstacle Course, Jamil Khoury’s new video play. Loosely based on Mosque Alert, it explores reactions to a proposed Islamic Community Center on the site of a beloved landmark, precipitating a head-on collision between Not in My Backyard fear mongering, well-intentioned liberalism, and the peaceful practice of faith.
For registration contact Sara Trumm at strumm@lstc.edu
https://www.obstaclecourse.tv/
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2020
Time: 6:00 pm Light Refreshments; 6:30 pm Talk
Where: Conference Room, Main Bldg, American Islamic College
This topic emanates from a Templeton-funded inter-religious project that Dr. Gianotti was a part of over the past few years. This working group of scholars developed the category of “religious genius” to consider great figures whose profundity and staying power transcends time and even religious boundaries, so much so that they are known and appreciated by other faith communities. Dr. Gianotti took al-Ghazali as a case study and developed a paper exploring why and how he qualifies to be considered a “religious genius.”
Many within the AIC community of students, staff, faculty, and friends will remember Dr. Timothy Gianotti, since he served the College from 2013-2015 as the inaugural Director of Islamic Studies and as an Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies. During that time, he designed and taught a range of graduate and undergraduate courses for the College’s undergraduate and graduate degree programs. He also established and ran the Faculty Council, helped redesign AIC’s existing curricula (BA & MA), and designed AIC’s Master of Divinity in Islamic Studies. Aside from this, he was active in AIC’s institutional and interfaith outreach.
Dr. Gianotti is a scholar of classical Islamic theology, philosophy, and spirituality with strong interests in Islamic Psychology, Ethics, Moral Theology, Education, Political Thought, and comparative mysticism; he is also a theologian and committed interfaith advocate with hands-on experience promoting interfaith engagement around the globe. With more than twenty years of university-level teaching experience in the US and Canada, he has served as an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, as the York-Noor Chair of Islamic Studies at York University in Canada, and as an assistant professor of Arabic & Islamic Thought at the University of Virginia, the University of Oregon, and Penn State University. He comes to us now from Toronto, where he serves as the founder and principal teacher of the Islamic Institute for Spiritual Formation.
He is the author of two books – Al-Ghazali’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001) and In the Light of a Blessed Tree: Illuminations of Islamic Belief, Practice, and History (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2011) – in addition to a range of scholarly articles, book chapters, and theological essays considering contemporary issues as well as traditional topics, such as the inner (psycho-spiritual) processes of moral beautification (iḥsān) and character formation within an Islamic framework.
President Daoud S. Casewit was invited by the Sudanese mosque, Dar al-Hijrah Center, to be a guest speaker on Tuesday, January 21, 2020.
President Casewit gave an insightful talk in Arabic, on the integral supplication of blessings for Prophet Muhammad
(pbuh).
Topic Summary: President Casewit began his talk with a hadith about the Prophet being informed by God that any of his followers who asked for benedictions upon him would benefit tenfold from the same benedictions from God, and that any who asked God to whelm him in integral peace (salām) would be similarly whelmed tenfold by God. This occurred in a specific place in Madinah and the Prophet fell into prolonged prostration out of gratitude. Why gratitude? Was it gratitude, because he needed these benedictions? “No,” the Audience responded, “he was thankful to God for having blessed his ummah with a new vehicle of grace.” Sūrat al-Aḥzāb, revealed around the time of the Battle of the Trench, contains this verse: (33:56) “Truly God and His angels invoke blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe! Invoke blessings upon him, and greetings of peace!” Here the believers are invited to join the perpetual action of God and the heavenly host in blessing the Prophet.
