News from the Hill October 01, 2012 | back to index
New Offering ‘Experiencing Islam’
Andover Newton is pleased to announce an exciting opportunity available to students during the second week of the January 2013 term. A joint offering between ANTS and Hebrew College, the course “Experiencing Islam” will be taught by visiting professor Dr. Homayra Ziad
The course explores Muslim intellectual and spiritual responses, past and present, to the revelatory event of the Qur’an and the experience of the Prophet Muhammad. Through a diversity of Muslim voices, the class will look at conceptions of revelation, scripture, prophecy, community, law, worship and spirituality, and question assumptions about what constitutes an Islamic identity.
Dr. Ziad is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, where she teaches courses on Islam. Her scholarly interests include intellectual and cultural trends in Muslim India, theoretical Sufism, Sufism and language, women’s religious production, and Qur’anic hermeneutics.
She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, most recently contributing an essay for the book My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation (Orbis, 2012) by Jennifer Peace, Greg Mobley, and Or Rose.
About her work in the classroom she writes, “In a world where students are faced with a host of popular opinions on Islam and on religion in general, I hope that I can give them the tools to think critically about religion, to weed out polemics from useful knowledge, and to form their own educated opinions on social and cultural issues.”
Enrollment for this course is limited. Registration starts October 22.
