Building Bridges Seminar

Seyed Amir Akrami is an Iranian scholar with research interests that include​Islamic philosophy and interreligious relations. Currently based at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (Tehran), he was a visiting professor at the Eastern Mennonite University Center for Interfaith Engagement from 2012 to 2015. He has also been a lecturer at the Al-Mahdi Institute in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and a member of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy. Akrami holds a B.A. in Islamic studies, M.A. in religion and mysticism, and Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion.

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.

Ovamir Anjum is Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Toledo. His work is interdisciplinary, focusing on the nexus of theology, ethics, politics, and law in classical and medieval Islam, with comparative interest in Western thought; he also studies contemporary issues such as developments in Islamic political thought in the wake of the Arab Uprisings of 2011. He is the author of Politics, Law and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (2012); and is near completion of a translation of a popular Islamic spiritual and theological classic, Madarij al-Salikin (Ranks of Divine Seekers) by Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1351). He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic intellectual history from University of Wisconsin-Madison, with master's degrees in social sciences from the University of Chicago and in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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.

The Revd. Dr. Sunil M. Caleb is the principal of Bishop’s College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Caleb has taught Christian theology and Christian ethics there for almost two decades. He is also an ordained presbyter of the Church of North India.

Dr. Jonathan Chaplin is a specialist in Christian political theology and a fellow of Wesley House, Cambridge Theological Federation, where he works with the Centre for Faith in Public Life. From 2006 to 2017, he was director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics in Cambridge, and from 1999 to 2006 he was associate professor of political theory at the Institute of Christian Studies (ICS) in Toronto. He held the Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy at ICS from 2004 to 2006 and was visiting lecturer in Christian social and political thought at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2007 to 2011. He is a research fellow of the Canadian Christian think-tank Cardus. He is author of Beyond Establishment: Resetting Church-State Relations in England (2022), Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity (2021), and Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (2011). He has edited or co-edited nine other works and published many articles and book chapters in the field.

Susan Eastman is an associate research professor emerita of the New Testament at Duke Divinity School. Her scholarly focus is on Paul’s letters in conversation with issues of personhood in science and philosophy. She is the author of Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians (2007; 2nd edition 2022), Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s Anthropology (2017), the forthcoming Commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans (Interpretation Commentary series), and Oneself in Another: Participation and Personhood in Pauline Theology (forthcoming), as well as numerous articles and conference papers. She is also ordained in the Episcopal Church. Eastman holds a B.A. from Pomona College, M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and Ph.D. from Duke University.

Dr. Waleed El-Ansary is Helal, Hisham and Laila Edris El-Swedey University Chair in Islamic Studies at Xavier University, where he teaches courses on comparative religion, Islamic studies, and religion and science. His research focuses on the intersection of religion, science, and economics. His numerous publications include “Islamic Environmental Economics and the Three Dimensions of Islam” in his co-edited volume Muslim and Christian Understanding: Theory and Application of A Common Word (2010, with David Linnan). His current work includes a book sponsored by a UNESCO-based organization, the Aladdin Project, which will be the main pedagogical tool in a program that seeks to familiarize theological students with the other two monotheist religions as described by prominent authorities in those religions. El-Ansary holds a Ph.D. in Islamic and religious studies from George Washington University.