Profiles of Selected Speakers

Dr. John Esposito University Professor, Professor of Religion and International Affairs, Professor of Islamic Studies and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Esposito specializes in Islam, political Islam from North Africa to Southeast Asia, and Religion and International Affairs. He is editor-in-chief of the four-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam and The Islamic World: Past and Present. His more than thirty books include Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Islam and Politics, Political Islam: Radicalism, Revolution or Reform?, Islam and democracy (with J. Voll).

Dr. Jamillah Karim is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Spelman College.

Interactive Seminar:  ‘Indigenous-Immigrant American Muslim Relations’

Dr. Karim obtained her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at Duke University. Her research and teaching interests include Islam in America, Muslim Women and Islamic Feminism, Muslims in the United States (African American, South Asian and Arab), Race and Ethnicity, Immigration and Transnational Identity, World Religions, Islamic Civilization and Culture, and Interpretation of the Qur’an.  She is completing a book project tentatively titled Imagining the American Ummah: Muslim Women Negotiate Race, Class, and Gender.

Dr. Karim is the author of several articles including:
"Between Immigrant Islam and Black Liberation: Young Muslims Inherit Global Muslim and African American Legacies"
"Voices of Faith, Faces of Beauty: Empowering American Muslim Women Through Azizah Magazine."

Dr. Sulayman Nyang teaches at Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he serves as Professor of African Studies. 

Interactive Seminar: ‘History of Islam in America’
Dr. Nyang has served as consultant to several national and international agencies. He has served on the boards of the African Studies Association, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.

Dr. Nyang has written extensively on Islamic, African and Middle Eastern affairs. His best known works are Islam in America (1994); Islam, Christianity and African Identity (1984), A Line in the Sand: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the Gulf War (1995), co-authored with Evan Heindricks, and Religious Plurality in Africa, co-edited with Jacob Olupona. Professor Nyang has also contributed over a dozen chapters in books edited by colleagues writing on Islamic, African and Middle Eastern subjects. His numerous scholarly pieces have appeared in African, American, European and Asian journals.
For a complete list of Dr. Nyang’s publications: http://www.gs.howard.edu/gradprograms/african_studies/profiles/nyang.htm

Asifa Quraishi, JD, LLM, SJD, Assistant Professor of Law at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Interactive Seminar ‘Introduction to Islamic Law’
Main topics covered:
*Islamic Legal Theory (Usul ul-Fiqh principles, Nature of Ijtihad, Madhhab Methodologies)
*Comparative Insights to Western/American Norms of Law and Government

*Additional session on career choices for Law Students and Lawyers

Professor Quraishi is a specialist in Islamic law and legal theory. Her expertise ranges from U.S. law on federal court practice to constitutional legal theory, with a comparative focus in Islamic law.  Her professional experience includes serving as a judicial law clerk with Judge Edward Dean Price on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and as the death penalty law clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor Quraishi is a founding member of:
*National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML)
*California group American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism (AMILA).

She is an associate of the Muslim Women's League, and has served as past president and board member of Karamah: Muslim Women for Lawyers for Human Rights. 

Her most recent publication is No Altars: a Survey of Islamic Family Law in the United States, in Women's Rights and Islamic Family Law, Lynn Welchman, editor (Zed Books 2004), with co-author Najeeba Syeed-Miller.

For futher information on Professor Quraishi: http://www.law.wisc.edu/facstaff/biog.php?ID=639

Speakers from the Field

Jameel Aalim Johnson, Chief of Staff, Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
Jameel Aalim Johnson has served as the Chief of Staff for Congressman Meeks since 1998.  His duties include hiring and supervision of staff, managing the annual budget and advising the Congressman on economic development issues and opportunities as they relate to the district. He also provides the Congressman with staff support on the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Johnson is the founder and the current President of the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association and the Vice President of the bipartisan House Administrative Assistants Association.

Kareema Dauod currently is pursuing a doctorate in Arabic language, literature and linguistics at Georgetown University. She also is serving in the State Department where she works on public diplomacy initiatives involving the Middle East. In her capacity as citizen ambassador to Under Secretary Karen Hughes, Kareema travelled with Hughes to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in 2005 to promote ongoing dialogue and good relations between those countries and the United States. More recently she was part of the U.S. delegation to the 2006 U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Interview with Georgetown University’s Newspaper, ‘The Hoya’ on her trip to the Middle East as citizen ambassador to Under Secretary Karen Hughes.
http://www.thehoya.com/news/102805/news6.cfm

Intisar Rabb is a 1998 MSN/MPSN alumnus, and currently pursuing a joint JD/PhD in comparative American and Islamic law.  She graduated from Yale Law School in 2006 and is currently writing her dissertation at Princeton University on legal maxims as interpretive tools in the two legal systems.  Intisar serves as a consultant for the MPSN curriculum and has lectured on the Islamic Sciences Module during the 2006 program, leading an exploration of the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence and the major issues that arise in its application today. Provide link: Article in Islamica Magazine, ‘Hurricane Katrina: Lessons for Muslim and American Communities’ http://www.islamicamagazine.com/issue-15/hurricane-katrina-8.html

Ahmed Younis, National Director of Muslim Public Affairs Council
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a public advocacy organization working towards the integration of American Muslims into American political and civic institutions. Mr. Younis is the author of American Muslims: Voir Dire (Speak the Truth), a post September 11th analysis of American Muslim identity. Ahmed is frequently invited to speak on issues affecting the American Muslim community. In 2006 he was invited by the State Department to lead public diplomacy missions to Central Asia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. Ahmed is also a frequent guest on national and international media, including PBS, FOX News, CNN International, BBC and Al Jazeera. He is a member of the US-Muslim World Advisory Committee at the US Institute of Peace. Before joining MPAC, Ahmed worked at the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations and was assigned to the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Iraq.  Mr. Younis is a graduate of Washington & Lee School of Law.

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