Akbar Ahmed: Journey into Islam July 28, 2007

In response to the events of September 11, Akbar Ahmed—a Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow, professor of Islamic Studies at American University, and former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain—led a team of young Americans on an unprecedented listening tour of the Muslim world. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization (Brookings, 2007) is the riveting story of their search for common ground in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. The project—sponsored by American University, the Brookings Institution, and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life—focuses its mission to help Islam and the West move past the hatred and mistrust that have characterized relations between the cultures.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities. His many books include After Terror: Promoting Dialogue among Civilizations, with Brian Forst (Polity, 2005), Islam under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honour World (Polity, 2003) and Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society (Routledge, 2002).

Official Website: http://www.politics-prose.com/calendar.htm#jj28