This evening is brought to you by the Muslim Students Association in collaboration with the Arab Students Association at Western Michigan University on Friday, February 19, 2009 at 5:30 PM in the Bernhard Center Ballroom. The keynote speech will be delivered by Imam Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah
Almost one quarter of the world's population is Muslim, and approximately 7 million Muslims live in the U.S.A, this event helps bridge the gap between the Muslim community and the non-Muslim community in the United States. Western Michigan University has a substantially large Muslim population; therefore, this especially benefits the WMU community.
In addition, this evening brings Muslims and non-Muslims of all different backgrounds together in one room on the same night. Guests converse with others seated at their tables and discuss different cultures and cultural perspectives.
Biography of SpeakerDr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (Wymann-Landgraf) is an American Muslim, born in 1948
to a Protestant family in Columbus, Nebraska. He grew up in Athens, Georgia,
where both parents taught at the University of Georgia. His father taught
Veterinary Medicine and Organic Chemistry, while his mother’s field was
English. In 1964, his parents took positions at the University of Missouri in
Columbia, where his grandfather had been a professor emeritus of Veterinary
Medicine. Dr. Abd-Allah did his undergraduate work at the University of
Missouri with dual majors in History and English Literature. He made the Dean’s
list all semesters and was nominated to the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society. In
1969, he won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and entrance to Cornell University in
Ithaca, New York to pursue a Ph.D. program in English literature. Shortly after
coming to Cornell, Dr. Abd-Allah read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which
inspired him to embrace Islam in early 1970. In 1972, he altered his field of
study and transferred to the University of Chicago, where he studied Arabic and
Islamic Studies under Dr. Fazlur Rahman. Dr. Abd-Allah received his doctorate
with honors in 1978 for a dissertation on the origins of Islamic Law,
Malik’s
Concept of ‘Amal in the Light of Maliki Legal Theory. From 1977 until
1982, he taught at the Universities of Windsor (Ontario), Temple, and Michigan.
In 1982, he left America to teach Arabic in Spain. Two years later, he was
appointed to the Department of Islamic Studies at King Abdul-Aziz University in
Jeddah, where he taught (in Arabic) Islamic studies and comparative religions
until 2000.
During his years abroad, Dr. Abd-Allah had the privilege of
studying with a number of traditional Islamic scholars. He returned to Chicago
in August 2000 to work as chair and scholar-in-residence of the newly founded
Nawawi Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation. In conjunction with
this position, he is now teaching and lecturing in and around Chicago and
various parts of the United States and Canada, while conducting research and
writing in Islamic studies and related fields. He recently completed a
biography of Mohammed Webb (d. 1916), who was one of the most significant early
American converts to Islam. The book is scheduled for release Spring/Summer
2006 under the title
A Muslim in Victorian America: The Story of Alexander
Russell Webb (Oxford University Press). Dr. Abd-Allah is presently completing a
second work entitled
Roots of Islam in America: A Survey of Muslim Presence in
the New World from Earliest Evidence until 1965 and is also updating his
dissertation for publication.