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Reading the Quran at Starbucks: A Traditional Muslim Scholar and a Secular Feminist Journalist Unpack the Clash of Civilizations Myth Carla Power

April 13, 2015, 1:00 pm
Location Dickson Hall - Cohen Lounge
SponsorGlobal Education Center, The History DepartmentPosted InInternational Academic Initiatives and Study Abroad
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Twenty years into their friendship, the American journalist Carla Power and the Indian hadith expert Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi embarked on discussions of the Quran together. Their conversations, whose subjects ranged from veiling to Islamist politics, from jihad to migration to child-rearing, offered both a rare vantage on one another's worldviews. Power will discuss how the Quran shapes Akram's life as a scholar, father, and migrant, and how studying with him proved an exercise in chipping away the myth of the clash of civilizations.

A journalist specializing in Muslim societies, global social issues and culture, Carla Power is the author of If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran, an account of her year spent studying with the traditional Islamic scholar Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi. She writes for Time and is a former correspondent for Newsweek, where she produced award-winning stories, reporting from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her essays have appeared in a wide range of publications, from Vogue and O: The Oprah Magazine to The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy. For further information contact x4185 or simonW@mail.montclair.edu