CERIS Educator's Readers' Forum

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K-16 Educators are invited to participate in the bi-annual Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies Faculty Readers' Forum.

I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said's America by Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst

April 11, University of Pittsburgh Dinner will be served at 5:30pm, discussion will begin at 6:00pm.

Omar ibn Said (1770–1863) was a Muslim scholar from West Africa who spent more than fifty years enslaved in the North Carolina household of James Owen, brother of Governor John Owen. In 1831 Omar composed a brief autobiography, the only known narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in North America, and he became famous for his Arabic writings. His enslavers also provided him with an Arabic Bible and claimed Omar as a convert to Christianity, prompting wonder and speculation among amateur scholars of Islam, white slave owners, and missionaries. But these self-proclaimed experts were unable or unwilling to understand Omar's writings, and his voice was suppressed for two centuries.

The discussion will be facilitated by Yasmine Flodin-Ali, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pittsburgh

Participants will receive a free copy of the book. .

Register here: https://forms.gle/wRETmKJLr9THscgM7

CERIS Books read:
Hate Your Policies, Love Your Institutions by John Waterbury, in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003
No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam by Geneive Abdo
The Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal
Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Anthony Sells
Orientalism by Edward Wadie Said
Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World by Carl M. Ernst
Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylvian A. Diouf
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Islam Without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists by Raymond William Baker
Islam and the Secular State, Negotiating the Future of Shari’a by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im
City of Oranges, An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa by Adam LeBor
The Crisis of Islamic Civilization by Ali Allawi
The Long Journey, In Search of Justice and Peace in Jerusalem by James G. Paharik
Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam by Akbar Ahmed
House of Stone by Anthony Shadid
In the House of Men by Hisham Matar
The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Paradise Beneath Her Feet, How Women Are Transforming the Middle East by Isobel Coleman
Revolution 2.0 by Wael Ghonim
Mornings In Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace by Paul Moses
Who is Allah, by Bruce B. Lawrence
A Sultan in Palermo: A Novel (The Islam Quintet), by Tariq Ali
Thomas Jefferson's Quran: Islam and the Founder by Denise A. Spellberg
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Beyond Timbuktu by Ousmane Oumar Kane
The Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Islam After Communism by Adeeb Khalid
The Bible and the Qur'an: Biblical Figures in the Islamic Tradition by Younus Mirza and John Kaltner
Jihad, Radicalism and the New Atheism by Mohammad Hassan Khalil
Who are the Uyghurs (selected readings)
Faces of Muhammad, Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today by John V. Tolan
Paths of Accommodation, Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania by David Robinson
Call Me American By Ibdi Nor Iftin
Meursault Investigation by Kamel Doued
Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America by Sohail Daulatzai.

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