CIK Talks is a platform for noted Muslim intellectuals and thought leaders to address critical issues facing the Ummah and ideas shaping the modern world. 
Disclaimer: All views expressed in CIK Talks are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the teachings, views, and opinions of  CIK.

The Meaning of Secularism: An Islamic Reading

​Saturday, June 26th at 12 PM EST (16 Dhul Qadah)

Presented by: Dr. Usaama al-Azami (University of Oxford)

It is often observed that ours is a secular age in which the state must remain separate from and neutral between the demands and expectations of a variety of religious positions. What, if anything, does Islam have to say about such an arrangement and its self-image of neutrality between all religions? In this CIK Talk, Dr. Usaama al-Azami will explore this question through a decolonial lens by reading the latest Western scholarship on religion and secularism through important scholars from the classical Islamic tradition. 
Dr. Usaama al-Azami is a Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, where he also completed his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He then earned an MA and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

Alongside his university career, he also earned an Alimiyyah Degree from the Al-Salam Institute with Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East, living for five years in the region and has been able to study with a number of Muslim scholars, including Ahmad ‘Ali Lajpuri, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kattani, Yunus Jaunpuri, Muhammad Rabi,’ ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Turayri, ‘Abd-Allah al-Judai,’ Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, Muhammad Al Rashid, Nizam Ya’qubi, Jihad Brown and Ziyad al-Tukla. 

Usaama is primarily interested in the interaction between Islam and modernity with a special interest in modern developments in Islamic political thought. His first book, Islam and the Arab Revolutions, looks at the way in which influential Islamic scholars responded to the Arab uprisings of 2011 through 2013. His Ph.D., which is a separate project which he hopes to develop into a monograph in the near future, is entitled "Modern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late 20th to the Early 21st Centuries". In it, he explores how Arab ulama of a mainstream "Islamist" orientation have engaged Western political concepts such as democracy, secularism and the nation-state, selectively adopting and assimilating aspects of these ideas into their understanding of Islam. His broader interests extend to a range of disciplines from the Islamic scholarly tradition from the earliest period of Islam down to the present.

In addition to academic writing, he is a frequent commentator on public affairs pertaining to Muslims in outlets such as Middle East Eye, HuffPost, Muslim Matters, and TRT World.

Islam, Liberalism, and Ontology
A Critical Re-evaluation

​Saturday, July 10th at 12 PM EST (30 Dhul Qadah)

​Presented by: Professor Joseph Kaminski (International University of Sarajevo)

In this CIK Talk, Prof. Kaminski will provide an overview of his newly published book Islam, Liberalism, and Ontology: A Critical Re-evaluation which argues that, despite recent efforts to speak of overlapping consensuses and discursive congruence, the fundamental categories that constitute "Islam" and "Liberalism" remain very different, and that these differences should be taken seriously. Thus far, no recent scholarly works have explicitly or meticulously broken down where these differences lie.

Prof. Kaminski will rigorously explore questions related to rights, moral epistemologies, the role of religion in the public sphere, and more general approaches to legal discourse via primary and canonical sources constitutive of both Islam and liberalism. He will also demonstrate why communitarian modes of thought are better suited for engaging with Islam and contemporary socio-political modes of organization than liberalism is.
Dr. Joseph J. Kaminski is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. His current research interests include Religion and Politics, Comparative Political Theory, and New Approaches to Islamic Public Reason. His books include: The Contemporary Islamic Governed State: A Reconceptualization (Palgrave, 2017) and Islam, Liberalism, and Ontology: A Critical Re-evaluation (Routledge, 2021). He is a graduate of Rutgers University, City University of New York (CUNY) and Purdue University where he completed his Ph.D. 

Ummah or Nation?
Identity Crisis in Contemporary Muslim Society

​Friday, August 20th at 7 PM EST (12 Muharram)

​Presented by: Professor Abdullah al-Ahsan

The Muslim world is passing through a period of creative tension. It has recently re-emerged from a long night of colonial domination by the West and is confronted with a world in the making of which its own role was almost non-existent. As such, it has to face a world made for it by others, a world war removed by its own vision.  The political system the West gave to the world, particularly after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), was characterized by secularism, nation-state and liberal capitalistic democracy.
 
In this CIK Talk, Dr. al-Ahsan will explore the concept of Ummah, drawing on the Qur'ān, Muslim history and the Islamic scholarly tradition. It will also examine the intellectual predicament of the Muslim world during the colonial and post-colonial periods and critically examine the influence of Western concepts of secularism and nation-state on the minds of Muslim intellectuals.
Dr. Abdullah al-Ahsan is a professor of comparative civilization studies. He most recently taught at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul Şehir University and the Department of History and Civilization at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Dr. Ahsan holds a MA in Islamic Studies from McGill University and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan.
 
He has contributed many articles on the relationship between contemporary Islamic and Western civilizations. His works include: The Organization of the Islamic Conference: Introduction to an Islamic Political Institution (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1988) and Ummah or Nation: Identity Crisis in Contemporary Muslim Society (Islamic Foundation, 1992). He has edited along with Stephen B Young, Guidance for Good Governance: Explorations in Qur'anic, Scientific, and Cross-cultural Approaches (International Islamic University Malaysia, 2008 and 2013). His latest edited book Qur'anic Guidance for Good Governance: A Contemporary Perspective (2017), has been published by Palgrave Macmillan. His books and articles have been translated into Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, Turkish, and Urdu.

Salafism and Traditionalism
Scholarly Authority in Modern Islam

​Friday, September 17th at 8 PM EST (10 Safar)

​Presented by: Professor Emad Hamdeh (Embry Riddle University)

One of the most contentious topics in modern Islam is whether one should adhere to an Islamic legal school or follow scripture directly. For centuries, Sunni Muslims have practiced Islam through the framework of the four legal schools. The 20th century, however, witnessed the rise of individuals who denounced the legal schools, highlighting cases where they contradict texts from the Qur'ān or Sunna. These differences are exemplified in the heated debates between the Salafi ḥadīth scholar Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī and his Traditionalist critics.

In this CIK Talk, Prof. Hamdeh will examine the tensions between Salafis and Traditionalists concerning scholarly authority in Islam. He will offer an insider's view of the debates between Salafis and Traditionalists and their differences regarding the correct method of interpreting Islam. Dr. Hamdeh will also provide a detailed analysis of the rise of Salafism, the impact of the printing press, the role of scholars in textual interpretation, and the divergent approaches to Islamic law.
Dr. Emad Hamdeh is an Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Embry Riddle University. He has published several articles on contemporary Muslim reform movements and Islamic law. He is also the author of The Necessity of Hadith in Islam (International Islamic Publishing House, 2011) and Salafism and Traditionalism: Scholarly Authority in Modern Islam (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Exeter (UK) and an M.A. in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary (United States). 

Previous Talks:

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Professor Ovamir Anjum is Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Toledo. His work focuses on the nexus of theology, ethics, politics and law in classical and medieval Islam, with comparative interest in Western Thought. His interests are united by a common theoretical focus on epistemology or views of intellect/reason in various domains of Islamic thought, ranging from politics (siyasa), law (fiqh), theology (kalam), falsafa (Islamic philosophy) and spirituality (Sufism, mysticism, and asceticism). He brings these historical studies to bear on issues in contemporary Islamic thought and movements and is currently researching developments in Islamic political thought in the wake of the Arab Uprisings of 2011. While trained as an historian, his work is essentially interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of classical Islamic studies, political philosophy, and cultural anthropology. 
 
He obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic Intellectual History from the Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of  Politics, Law and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012). His current projects include one forthcoming edited volume on Islam after the 2011 Arab Uprisings and a monograph on the foundations of modern Islamic political thought. He is also near-completing a decade-long project to translate a popular Islamic spiritual and theological classic, Madarij al-Salikin (Ranks of Divine Seekers) by Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1351), which, upon completion, would be the largest single-author English translation of a classical Islamic text. Dr. Ovamir is a Co-Editor of the American Journal of Islam and Society and a Senior Fellow and Editor in Chief at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research.
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​Dr. Ermin Sinanović is executive director of the Center for Islam in the Contemporary World (CICW) at Shenandoah University, where he is also Scholar in Residence. Before joining CICW, he was director of research and academic programs at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). He was also a faculty associate in research, Southeast Asian Program at Cornell University.

Sinanović studied for a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He obtained two bachelor's degrees (one in the Qur’an and Sunnah studies, the other in political science) from the International Islamic University Malaysia, and a master's degree in Islamic civilization from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sinanović’s research interests include transnational Islamic revival, revival and reform in Islam, Islamic political thought, Southeast Asian politics, Islam and politics, and leadership in higher education. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and in edited volumes, including Politics, Religion and Ideology, Muslim-Christian Relations, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. 

Sinanović sits on editorial boards of two academic journals: Politics, Religion and Ideology (Taylor & Francis) and Context (Center for Advanced Studies, Sarajevo). He has reviewed book manuscripts and articles for Edinburgh University Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan USA, American Political Science Review, Journal of Global Ethics, and Journal of Muslims in Europe, among others.
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Dr. Katherine Bullock is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, where she also completed her Ph.D. Her teaching focus is political Islam from a global perspective, and her research focuses on Muslims in Canada, their history, contemporary lived experiences, political and civic engagement, debates on the veil, and media representations of Islam and Muslims.  She was the editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences from 2003 – 2008 and the Vice-President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America from 2006 - 2009.
 
Her publications include Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves (University of Texas Press) and Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes (International Institute of Islamic Thought), which has been translated into Arabic, French, and Turkish. She is also the Director of Research of the Tessellate Institute, a research institute that explores and documents the lived experiences of Muslims in Canada and the President of Compass Books, dedicated to publishing top-quality books about Islam and Muslims in English. Originally from Australia, she lives in Oakville with her husband and children. She embraced Islam in 1994.
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Professor Ovamir Anjum is Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Toledo. His work focuses on the nexus of theology, ethics, politics and law in classical and medieval Islam, with comparative interest in Western Thought. His interests are united by a common theoretical focus on epistemology or views of intellect/reason in various domains of Islamic thought, ranging from politics (siyasa), law (fiqh), theology (kalam), falsafa (Islamic philosophy) and spirituality (Sufism, mysticism, and asceticism). He brings these historical studies to bear on issues in contemporary Islamic thought and movements and is currently researching developments in Islamic political thought in the wake of the Arab Uprisings of 2011. While trained as an historian, his work is essentially interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of classical Islamic studies, political philosophy, and cultural anthropology. 
 
He obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic Intellectual History from the Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of  Politics, Law and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012). His current projects include one forthcoming edited volume on Islam after the 2011 Arab Uprisings and a monograph on the foundations of modern Islamic political thought. He is also near-completing a decade-long project to translate a popular Islamic spiritual and theological classic, Madarij al-Salikin (Ranks of Divine Seekers) by Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1351), which, upon completion, would be the largest single-author English translation of a classical Islamic text. Dr. Ovamir is a Co-Editor of the American Journal of Islam and Society and a Senior Fellow and Editor in Chief at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research.
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Professor Mohammad H. Fadel is Professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006. Professor Fadel wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law while at the University of Chicago and received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, New York, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations. Professor Fadel also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Professor Fadel has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history and Islam and liberalism.
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Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal is the founder-president of the Center for Islamic Sciences, (previously, Center for Islam and Science) and General Editor of the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, the first English-language reference work on the Qur'an based on fourteen centuries of Muslim scholarship.
 
Dr. Iqbal has held academic and research positions at University of Saskatchewan (1979-1984), University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984-85), and McGill University (1986). During 1990-1996, he worked as Director Scientific Information, Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH). He was Director of Pakistan Academy of Sciences during 1997-98. In 1999, Dr. Iqbal became the Program Director for the Muslim World for the Science-Religion Course Program of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), Berkeley, USA, a position he held until the end of the Program in 2001.

Dr. Iqbal has written, translated, and edited twenty-one books and published nearly one hundred papers on various aspects of Islam, its spiritual and intellectual traditions and on the relationship between Islam and science, and Islam and the West. He co-translated, with Dr. Zafar Ishaq Ansari, Volume VII of Tafhim al-Qur’an (Islamic Foundation, 2001). He contributed, as consultant, to Concentric Circles—Nurturing Awe and Wonder in Early Childhood and is one of the founders of Muslim Education Foundation (Canada), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing resources and services to educators, students and parents for a process of learning built on the Qur’anic worldview.

He is the founding editor of the Islam & Science (renamed as Journal of Islamic Sciences in 2013), a journal that explores, from Islamic perspectives, religious and philosophical implications of data and theories originating in the physical, biological, and social sciences. He is also the Series Editor for Ashgate's Islam and Science: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives (2012, reprinted by Routledge), a four volume work that brings together the most important and influential articles dealing with various aspects of the relationship between Islam and science.

His other publications include:
  • Islam and Science (Ashgate, 2002, republished by Routledge, 2019)
  • ​God, Life and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives (co-ed., Ashgate, 2002, republished by Routledge, 2019)
  • Science and Islam (Greenwood Press, 2007)
  • Islam, Science, Muslims, and Technology: Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Conversation with Muzaffar Iqbal (Al-Qalam-IBT, 2007)
  • Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim’s Passage (Islamic Book Trust, 2007)
  • Dew on Sunburnt Roses and other Quantum Notes (Dost Publications, 2007)
  • Definitive Encounters: Islam, Muslims, and the West (Islamic Book Trust, 2008)
  • The Making of Islamic Science (IBT, 2009).

​For a more detailed list of publications, see publications.
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Professor Mohammad H. Fadel is Professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006. Professor Fadel wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law while at the University of Chicago and received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, New York, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations. Professor Fadel also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Professor Fadel has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history and Islam and liberalism.