Building Bridges Seminar

Hussein Abdulsater is assistant professor in the Program in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at Notre Dame University. His research focuses on Muslim theological and ethical discourses in their interactions with each other and with non-Muslim discourses, and it is also concerned with depictions of major theological themes and schools in classical Arabic literature and historiography. The author of Shiʿi Doctrine, Muʿtazili Theology: al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and the Systematization of Imami Discourse (2017), he has also published articles on the confessional and communal development of Shi'ism, sixteenth-century Qur'anic exegesis, and on the freedom of conscience in classical Islamic theology. He holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University and an M.A. in Arabic language and literature from the American University of Beirut.

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.

Mehdi Azaiez is a professor of Islamic studies at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium. He also manages a website dedicated to Qur’anic studies. Previously, he was an instructor on Islamic studies and co-director of the Qur’an Seminar, an international project based at the University of Notre Dame. He is a member of the publications and research committee of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, a scientific member of the Bulletin Critique des Annales Islamologiques, and an associate researcher at the Institute for Islamic and Muslim World Studies (Institute de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Musulman). His publications include Le contre-discours coranique (2015). Azaiez holds a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of Aix-Marseille.

John Azumah is a professor of world Christianity and Islam and the director of international programs at Columbia Theological Seminary. He specializes in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations and is interested in Islamic and Christian theology of religions, missions, and missiology. Previously the director for the Centre of Islamic Studies at the London School of Theology, he has taught in theological seminaries in India, South Africa, and Ghana and was a research fellow at the Akrofi-Christaller Institute in Ghana. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Azumah earned his Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham.

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.

Yousef Casewit is assistant professor of Qur'anic studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His research interests include the intellectual history of North Africa and al-Andalus, Muslim perceptions of the Bible, and medieval commentaries on the 99 divine names. Previously, he was a Humanities Research Fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi and an assistant professor of Arabic intellectual heritage and culture at the American University of Sharjah. His publications include a critical edition of a Qur’an commentary by Ibn Barrajan of Seville (2016) and The Mystics of al-Andalus: Ibn Barrajān and Islamic Thought in the Twelfth Century (2017). He is also preparing a translation and critical edition of a Sufi philosophical commentary on the divine names by the Algerian scholar ‘Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani. Casewit earned his Ph.D. in Islamic studies from Yale University.

Fr. Emmanuel Clapsis is Archbishop Iakovos Professor of Orthodox Theology at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts. His academic interests include ecumenism, the public presence and witness of Orthodoxy in a pluralistic world, and globalization and religion. Clapsis is the author of Orthodoxy in the New World and editor of The Orthodox Churches in a Pluralistic World: An Ecumenical Conversation (2004). He has served as the vice moderator of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and has participated in the theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church with the Evangelical Lutheran Church (USA) and the Roman Catholic Church. Clapsis holds a B.A. from Hellenic College, M.Div. from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and STM, M.Ph., and Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary (New York).