Building Bridges Seminar

Shabbir Akhtar was an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom until his death in 2023. He was also an associate fellow of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies. His research interests included the Christian and Islamic responses to Western secular modernity; the work of Søren Kierkegaard; Paul's letter to the Galatians; the Qur'an and the New Testament; and freedoms of speech, conscience, and faith. His publications included The Quran and the Secular Mind (2007), Islam as Political Religion (2010), and The New Testament in Muslim Eyes: Paul's Letter to the Galatians (2018). He held B.A. and M.A. degrees in philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary.

Muhammad Modassir Ali is an assistant professor at the Muhammad Bin Hamad Al Thani Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization in Hamad Bin Khalifa University's College of Islamic Studies. His academic interests include Islamic studies, ancient and medieval philosophy, spirituality, Hinduism, Christianity, and sira. Ali previously was a teaching assistant and assistant dean of student affairs at the Qatar University College of Sharia & Islamic Studies and an assistant professor and head of the Department of Comparative Religion at International Islamic University Islamabad. His master's degree dissertation for that institution was entitled “The Concept of Revelation and Prophecy in Hinduism: A Critical Study.” He also completed his Ph.D. at International Islamic University Islamabad, where his dissertation was on "The Catholic Concept of Revelation since the Second Vatican Council and its Impact on the Christian View of the ‘Other’.”

Ahmet Alibašić is assistant professor in the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarejevo, where he teaches Islamic culture and civilization courses. His doctorate, completed at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Sarajevo, focused on Islamic opposition in the Arab world. He is the director of the Center for Advanced Studies, Sarajevo, a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, and chairman of Gazi Husrev-bey Library. He is one of the editors of Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (2009–2013) and Journal of Muslims in Europe. From 2003 to 2007 he served as deputy president of the Association of Islamic Scholars in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Najib George Awad, a theologian and poet originally from Syria, is professor of Christian theology and Eastern Christian thought at Hartford Seminary; he is also director of its Ph.D. program in Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations. His research interests include systematic theology, the doctrine of the Trinity, theology of religions, contextual theology, Arabic Christianity and Christian-Muslim relations, and Oriental/Arab Christianity, particularly the early Christian-Muslim kalam of the early Muslim (Umayyad and Abbasid) era. He publishes in both Arabic and English. His works in English include God without Face? On the Personal Individuation of the Holy Spirit (2011); And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring (2012); Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms: A Study of Theodore Abū Qurrah’s Trinitarian and Christological Doctrines in an Islamic Context (2015); and Umayyad Christianity: John of Damascus as a Contextual Example of Identity Formation in Early Islam (2018). He earned his M.A. and D.Phil. in systematic theology from King’s College, University of London, and D.Th. (habilitation) in historical/Oriental theology from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany.

Richard Bauckham is Senior Scholar at Cambridge University's Ridley Hall. A wide-ranging theologian and New Testament scholar, his work has focused on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John, the theology of Jürgen Moltmann, the Jewish context of the New Testament, and the Bible and contemporary issues (including ecology). Until his 2007 retirement he was professor of New Testament studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor at the University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom. A prolific author, his publications include Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology (2015), The Bible in the Contemporary World (2015), Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (2010); The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (2007), Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2006), God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (1998), and The Theology of the Book of Revelation (1993). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

Jonathan A.C. Brown is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he is also the director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. His current research focuses on Islamic legal reform and a translation of Sahih al-Bukhari. He previously taught a class supported through the Berkley Center's Doyle Seminars project. His book publications include Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (2014), Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (2011), Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (2009), and The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (2007). Brown has published articles in the fields of hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory, and pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Brown received his B.A. from Georgetown University and his doctorate from the University of Chicago.

Maria Massi Dakake is an associate professor of religious studies at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia. She is the director of the undergraduate interdisciplinary Islamic studies program at GMU, and is a founding member and former co-director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. Her research interests and publications lie in the fields of Islamic intellectual history, with a particular interest in Quranic studies, Shiite and Sufi mystical traditions, and women’s religious experiences. She is co-editor with Daniel Madigan and George Archer of the Routledge Companion to the Qur’an (2021); associate editor and co-author of The Study Qur’an (2015); and author of The Charismatic Community: Shi`ite Identity in Early Islam (2008). She is currently completing a monograph, Toward an Islamic Theory of Religion (forthcoming 2023). She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University.