Date: Wednesday,  September 16, 2020
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm talk, followed by Q & A
Online Platform: Zoom

What are some of the challenges in the elusive quest for racial equity in education in the United States? What policies and practices serve to handicap or reinforce these inequities? Where do institutions fall short? Where do they succeed? This talk will grapple with these questions while exploring some key educational inequities, at every level from Pre-K though College, with a focus on the work at several Chicagoland area institutions.

Aisha El-Amin holds a PhD in Policy Studies in Urban Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Masters of Education from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Science in Management Studies from the University of Maryland- European Division. Dr. El-Amin is passionate about issues of equity and justice in education. These passions have led her to become an Illinois State Board of Education Certified K-9th grade teacher, an adjunct professor at several colleges and universities, an elected school board member for Community Consolidated School District #168, appointed board member for Routledge journal, Religion and Education, board vice-chair for Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Chicago and board member with Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). Additionally, Dr. El-Amin has served in several roles at University of Illinois at Chicago as a multi-million dollar education grant manager, director of The Council on Teacher Education, Associate Dean of Student Affairs in the College of Education and currently Associate Provost and Chief of Staff for the Provost.

Dr. El-Amin’s education and experience have allowed her to be the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the Muslim Women’s Alliance 2016 Inspiring Women’s Award, Diversifying Faculty in Illinois Fellowship, Illinois Veterans Grant and DePaul/Glenview Clinical Model Scholar and Rainbow Push Excellence in Education Award. Dr. El-Amin’s activism is best captured in her historic leadership roles with various Chicago based organizations. Some of her roles included coordinating committee member of Teachers for Social Justice, co-founder of Bridging the Gap Inc., co-chair of Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) Takin’ it to the Streets event logistics, and co-chair of the Public School Initiative for Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC).

Date: Wednesday,  October 14, 2020
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm talk, followed by Q & A
Online Platform: Zoom

In his talk, Dr. Rizwan will examine the ways in which pre-modern Muslim authorities understood the directive in Q24:2 about not taking mercy when applying 100 lashes to zinā offenders. He will argue that Muslim jurists were in fact willing to grant mercy in certain cases because they were taking into account the ability of an offender to withstand the punishment as well as its unintended consequences. Dr. Rizwan will discuss how notions of mercy can be used to reimagine the criminal law within the context of criminal justice reform.

Syed Atif Rizwan grew up in New Jersey and completed his undergraduate studies at Rutgers University, where he majored in Economics and minored in Chemistry. After graduation, he spent 8 years in the financial services industry, during which time he worked in New Jersey, New York, and Los Angeles. In 2009, he matriculated in Claremont Graduate School’s Master’s in Islamic Studies program, and upon completion of his MA in 2011 he enrolled in the Islamic Studies doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles. He graduated from UCLA in June of 2018 and his dissertation title is “The Resurrection of Stoning as Punishment for Zinā in Islamic Criminal Laws: From Zinā Flogging in the Qur’ān to Zinā Stoning in the Islamic Legal Tradition.” In his project, he examines the beginnings of the process by which stoning became an Islamic punishment for certain forms of illicit sexual intercourse in the Islamic legal tradition. Syed currently focuses on Islamic intellectual history, the intersection of Islamic criminal laws and ethics, and interreligious studies and dialogue.

Date: Thursday,  November 12, 2020
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm talk, followed by Q & A
Online Platform: Zoom

Laila Al-Arian is an Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist, author and executive producer of “Fault Lines,” a U.S.-based documentary and current affairs program on Al Jazeera English. In her talk, she will discuss what led her to journalism, including the coverage of Islam, Muslims and the Middle East when she was growing up in the 80s and 90s, the challenges she has faced along the way, how storytelling can be effective and the importance of having Muslims involving, working and leading in one of the most influential spaces in public life.

Laila Al-Arian is a Washington DC-based journalist and the executive producer of Fault Lines, an award-winning current affairs program on Al Jazeera English. She has produced documentaries on subjects ranging from the Trump administration’s Muslim ban to the impact of the heroin epidemic on children and an investigation into factory conditions producing garments for Walmart and Gap in Bangladesh. For her work, she has been honored with two News and Documentary Emmys, a Peabody Award, a Robert F Kennedy Award in journalism, Overseas Press Club award, National Headliner Award, and has been nominated for 14 News and Documentary Emmys.

Prior to joining Fault Lines, Laila worked for Al Jazeera English for four years, covering everything from Guantanamo Bay’s youngest detainee to the re-settlement of Iraqi refugees in the U.S. She received a BA in English literature from Georgetown University and an M.S. from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The Independent, and other publications, and she is co-author of the book Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.

Watch the workshop live in one of these platforms:

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.

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.

Date: Friday, January 10, 2020
Time: 7:00 pm
Where: Auditorium, Main Bldg, American Islamic College
Registration: Free Talk; Registration Required
Parking: Located at 640 W Irving Park Rd
and 613 W Bittersweet Pl (rear of main building)

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College at Western University in Canada.

Dr. Mattson was educated in Canada and the United States, earning a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1999. From 1998 to 2012 she was Professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary in CT where she developed and directed the first accredited graduate program for Muslim chaplains in America, and served as Director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. From 2001-2010 Dr. Mattson served as vice-president, then as president of the Islamic Society of North America (USA), the first woman to serve in either position. Her writings, both academic and public, focus primarily Qur’an interpretation, Islamic theological ethics and interfaith relations. Her book, The Story of the Qur’an, is an academic best-seller and was chosen by the US National Endowment for the Humanities for inclusion in its “Bridging Cultures” program.

Dr. Mattson is a Senior Fellow of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman, Jordan. From 2009-2010, Dr. Mattson was a member of the Interfaith Taskforce of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; in 2008 she was on the Council of Global Leaders of the C-100 of the World Economic Forum; from 2007-2008, she was a member of the Leadership Group of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project (USME). Dr. Mattson is the recipient of numerous awards as well as honorary doctorates from Trinity College, Hartford, and the Chicago Theological Seminary. She is frequently consulted by the media and has served as an expert witness.

Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Time: 6:00 pm Light Refreshments; 6:30 pm Talk
Where: Reception Hall, Dormitory Bldg, American Islamic College

Hoda Katebi is the Chicago-based angry daughter of Iranian immigrants. She is the voice behind JooJoo Azad, the award-winning political fashion platform hailed from BBC to the New York Times to the pages of VOGUE; author of the book Tehran Streetstyle, a celebration and documentation of illegal fashion in Iran; host of #BecauseWeveRead, a radical international book club with over 30 chapters worldwide; and founder of Blue Tin Production, an all-women immigrant and refugee-run clothing manufacturing co-operative in Chicago. Hoda is an abolitionist and community organizer, working with Believers Bail Out to bail Muslims out of pretrial incarceration and immigration detention centers, and was previously part of campaigns to divest from aparthied israel and end local surveillance programs and police militarization. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2016, and runs on saffron ice cream & colonizer tears.

Dates: Wednesday, July 10 & 17, September 4, October 2, November 6,  2019
Time: 6:30pm – 8:30pm each day
Where: Conference Hall, Main Bldg, American Islamic College

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.