Jewish Seminars
 

• UNDERSTANDING MUSLIM NEIGHBORS by Prof. Rabbi Reuven Firestone (available online now), Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Affiliate Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California. Recipient of numerous research fellowships and university invitations, he is currently an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in Berlin (summers, 2017-2019) and Sigi Feigel Visiting Professorship for Jewish Studies, University of Zürich (2018). Prof. Firestone has written over a hundred scholarly articles and eight books, including An Introduction to Islam for Jews and An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims. His scholarship has been translated into German, French, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Indonesian and Urdu. Having lived with his family in Israel, Egypt and Germany he regularly lectures in universities and religious centers throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He served as vice president of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) and president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA) and has initiated and continues to be involved in numerous projects and initiatives which bring together Jews Muslims and Christians, Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians.
   
• UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS for the Jewish community is in development.

Christian Seminars

• LOVING MUSLIM NEIGHBORS by Rod Cardoza
  (available online now) a cultural, theological and linguistic anthropologist. Cardoza has published ethnographic research on Muslim ritual, and lectures internationally on Muslim-Christian dialogue. He studied Urdu language at Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India. He researched social stratification among Muslim communities in Ahmedabad, India; shamanism among Maguindanaon Muslims in rural Mindanao, Philippines; and Shi'ite mourning rituals in Gujarat, India. He worked closely with leading scholars from Delhi University and Hazrat Pir Mohammed Shah Research Centre in India to publish religious peacebuilding Urdu texts. He also researched the role of Muslim cinematography in teaching Islamic knowledge in Egypt, where Rod lived with his family for several years while studying Arabic. Rod has lectured widely at universities and seminaries such as Lewis & Clark College, American University DC, Fresno Pacific University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. Rod authored "New Paths in Muslim-Christian Dialog: Understanding Islam from the Light of Earliest Jewish Christianity," (originally presented in Washington, DC at the Annual Conference on Muslim Peace, Justice and Interfaith Dialogue sponsored by Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, and Islamic Society of North America), published in The Muslim World, a journal devoted to the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations.

• LOVING JEWISH NEIGHBORS by Dr. Marvin Wilson  (available online now), Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Gordon College. He served as a translator and editor of the NIV (New International Version) Bible, currently the most widely used English Bible translation in the world. Dr. Wilson has taught Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Studies for more than 60 years and co-edited four books with Jewish scholars to build bridges of understanding between Christian and Jewish communities. He authored the celebrated book, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (1989), singled out by Christian Century Magazine as an “all-time best seller” in the field of religion, and selected to form the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary, Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith. More recently, Dr. Wilson authored, Exploring Our Hebraic Heritage: A Christian Theology of Roots and Renewal (2014), about which Prof. Susannah Heschel (daughter of the legendary Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel) wrote, “For two thousand years, we have longed for a Christian scholar of Judaism as sensitive and knowledgeable as Marvin Wilson, and his work fulfills our hopes.”

Muslim Seminars

• UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS by Prof. Abdullah Saeed (coming in 2025, إنشاء الله ), the Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne in Australia, the Director of the National Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies, and the Convenor of Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. Prof. Saeed graduated from the Islamic University of Medina in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics as well as a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Melbourne. He is an active researcher, focusing on the negotiation of text and context, ijtihad and interpretation. He is particularly interested in the promotion of inter-religious initiatives and regularly engages with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities at national and international symposia to enhance community understandings of Islam, Islamic thought, and Muslim societies. He has authored and edited numerous works, including Reading the Qur'an in the Twentieth Century: Towards a Contextualist Approach (2014); The Qur'an: An Introduction (2008); Islamic Thought: An Introduction (2006); and Interpreting the Qur'an: Towards a Contemporary Approach (2006). Prof. Saeed continues to teach Islamic studies at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and is the Foundation Chair of the Sultan of Oman Endowed Chair in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne.