Carleton to Hold Seminar on Islam and Muslim Identity

Carleton College will hold a seminar on Islam on Saturday, April 24, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Concert Hall. The event is titled “Islam and the Politics of Muslim Identity.” The speakers for the event are Shaykh Abdul Haqq Sazonoff and Paul Hardy. This event is about Muslim identity in America and the need for Muslims to tap into their rich tradition of spirituality so to answer controversial questions and polemics that have plagued them since September 11, 2001. There also will be a question and answer session at the end of the seminar. The event is free and open to the public.

Abdul Haqq was born in 1947 under the American name “Peter.” He pursued a journalism degree from Southern Illinois University and later at Roosevelt University in Chicago. However, he felt drawn to issues concerning spirituality and religion and began to pursue the answers to questions of spirituality and the self. Soon, after a meeting with Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani, the Grand Scholar (Mufti) of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence of Turkish Cyprus as well as the Grand Master (Shaykh) of the Naqshbandi Sufi Way, the branch of Islam dealing with spirituality, mystical knowledge, and the purifying of the self, he converted to Islam and became an apprentice of the charismatic and learned Shaykh Nazim.

Abdul Haqq has done international relief work for the relief organization American Muslim Assistance (AMA), traveling to the then war-torn region of Kosovo in 1999 and to Western Turkey to provide relief for earthquake survivors.

He is currently the National Director for the Naqshbandi Sufi Order of America (www.naqshbandi.org) and has appeared on numerous shows and events speaking about Islamic Law and Spirituality, such as Oprah Winfrey’s “Islam 101” show, and has spoken at numerous colleges in the United States and Canada, including the University of Chicago and McGill University.

Professor Paul Hardy earned his doctorate degree in Islamic Thought from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He is an expert on Islam, specifically on Islamic extremism and Islamic philosophy. He has edited a book titled “Rethinking Muslim Traditions,” an anthology published by Brill Academic Publishers. He has also written the book “Traditions of Islam: Understanding the Hadith. He was a professor in Islamic Studies at the City College of New York and currently resides in New York writing texts on Islamic philosophy and Sufism.