Building Bridges Seminar

Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem is the King Fahd Professor of Islamic Studies and director of the Centre for Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London University, as well as editor of the Journal of Qur’anic Studies. Born in Egypt, he learned the Qur’an by heart during childhood. Haleem has published two translations of the Qur'an: The Qur'an: English Translation with Parallel Arabic Text (2010) and The Qur'an: A New Translation (2004). He has also published several other works in this field, including Understanding the Qur’an: Themes and Style (2001) and, together with Elsaid M. Badawi, Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage (2008).

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is a Malaysian politician who served as prime minister of Malaysia from 2003 to 2009. He was president of the United Malays National Organization and led the governing Barisan National parliamentary coalition. Abdullah succeeded Mahathir Mohamad in 2003, rising from the position of deputy prime minister. As premier, he emphasized anti-corruption policies and focused his economic policies on sustaining previous economic gains rather than continued growth. He strengthened Malaysia’s agricultural sector and promoted moderate Islam. Prior to being deputy prime minister, Badawi held the positions of minister in the prime minister's department, minister of education, minister of defense, and minister of foreign affairs. Badawi stepped down in favor of Najib Tun Razak in April 2009.

Kenneth Bailey, who died in 2016, was a New Testament scholar and Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church. From 1955 to 1995 Bailey lived and taught in seminaries and institutes in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Cyprus. During this time he spent 20 years as a professor of the New Testament at the Near East School of Theology, Beirut, and 10 years as a research professor of Middle Eastern New Testament studies at Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research. His publications include, among others, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes (2008), Jacob & the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel's Story (2003), and The Cross & the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants (1973/2005). Bailey was also a member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (the Society for New Testament Studies).

Vincent J. Cornell is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory University. His interests span Islamic thought from the doctrinal and social history of Sufism to philosophy and Islamic law. From 2000 to 2006, he was professor of history and director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas; from 1991 to 2000 he taught at Duke University. He is the editor of the five-volume Voices of Islam (2007) and author of, among others, Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims Worship the Same God? (2012, with Baruch Levine, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce Chilton) and Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (1998). Cornell received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ellen Davis is Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School. Her research interests focus on the bearing of biblical interpretation on faith communities and their response to public issues, particularly the environmental crisis and interfaith relations. She is the author of, among others, Preaching the Luminous Word (2016), Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship and Ministry (2014), and Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (2009). Davis holds an M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Salwa El-Awa is a lecturer in modern languages at Swansea University, specializing in Arabic and Islamic studies. Her research and teaching interests include Arabic linguistics and modern linguistic analysis of Arabic and Islamic text, particularly the Qur'an, as well as researching contemporary Islamic movements, their ideologies, and their changing relations with the state and law enforcement authorities. She previously was a lecturer in Qur'anic studies in the University of Birmingham's Department of Theology and Religion, where she co-led the two-year-long research program that produced "Police-Muslim Engagement and Partnerships for the Purposes of Counter-Terrorism: An Examination” (2009). She is also the author of The Qur'anic Text: Relevance, Coherence and Structure (2005). El-Awa moved from Egypt to the United Kingdom in 1998 to pursue her Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where she studied contemporary linguistic theory and utilized it to explain a number of problematic questions about the structure of the Qur’anic text.

Cardinal Michael Louis Fitzgerald, M.Afr., is considered one of the Roman Catholic Church’s leading experts on Islam. He was the papal nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League from 2006 until his retirement in 2012. Previously, he had been president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID). He was ordained bishop in 1991 and archbishop in 2002 upon his appointment as PCID president; he was created cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019.

David Ford is an Anglican theologian, the Regius Professor of Divinity emeritus at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Selwyn College. He was the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme from 1992 to 2015. Ford also taught for 15 years at the University of Birmingham. His work in the area of Christian theology has been inspired by post-liberal and narrative theology. Ford is one of the founders of scriptural reasoning and has been extensively involved in generating new modes of engagement for interfaith relations in the post-9/11 world. He is the author of The Future of Christian Theology (2011) and Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (2007), as well as co-editor of The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (2006) and Fields of Faith: Theology and Religious Studies for the Twenty-First Century (2005). In 2013, Ford was named an Honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to theological scholarship and interfaith relations.