CIS News for September 2022
The Center for Islamic Studies extends a warm welcome to all new and returning students, faculty, visiting scholars and staff for the academic year 2022-2023!
We are especially grateful and delighted as the GTU celebrates 60 years and the CIS celebrates its 15th year anniversary – congratulations! We look forward to collaborative programs and events this year that highlight the many wonderful achievements of our students, alums, faculty, visiting and research scholars, staff, and our community partnerships. We welcome your suggestions: mhartman@gtu.edu
Congratulations to David Coolidge, GTU PhD Candidate, on his publication:
“Dharma of Bhakti, Dharma of Mlecchas: Muslim Engagement with Gaudīya Vaisnavism as a Living Tradition,” published in the Journal of Dharma Studies 3, 121–130 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-020-00065-z, which is being republished in the ISKON Communications Journal.
Congratulations to Carol Bier, CIS research scholar, on the following:
"Arts of Royalty in Sasanian Iran," public lecture for Ancient Art Council at San Francisco's Legion of Honor, 14 May 2022.
"Isfahan's Architecture Considered in Light of the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra," conference presentation for "A Light Footprint in the Cosmos," Substantial Motion Research Network at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC, 27 June 2022.
"Persian Velvets of the 17th Century: Symmetry, Craft, and Technology," conference presentation for 12th SIS-Symmetry Congress, Porto, Portugal, 14 July 2022 (published in Symmetry: Art and Science 1-4 (2022), pp. 168-75).
Congratulations to Huzaifa Shahbaz, CIS MA alum 2020, and former Project Coordinator for the GTU Luce Covid-19 Community Partnerships Grant 2020-2021, who will begin his doctoral work in the Politics Department at UC Santa Cruz, with a research focus on Islamophobia and US politics.
Congratulations also on the publication of Huzaifa’s national report on Muslim Civil Rights while Senior Researcher at the Council for American Islamic Relations
Congratulations to our amazing Islamic Studies graduates on their incredible achievements:
- Sakinah Alhabshi (MA with Honors, Spring 2022), thesis title, Spiritual Wellbeing and Resilience During a Prolonged Crisis: An Analysis and Integration of Contemplation-based and Action-based Practices from an Islamic Perspective
- Huzaifah Bharucha (MA, Fall 2022), thesis title, Contradictions between Āḥād Ḥadīth and Qiyās within the Ḥanafī Madhhab
- Dr. Uzma Husaini (PhD, Spring 2022), dissertation title, The Centrality of the Link Transmission (Isnād), Both Oral and Written, in the Preservation of Qur’anic Orthoepy, Orthography, and Variant Readings and Recensions
- Dr. May Kosba (PhD, Fall 2022), dissertation title, The Race Question: Egyptian Intellectualism on the Periphery of the African Diaspora
Congratulations to the graduates and their families, friends, and communities. We celebrate and commend the graduates for their scholarly excellence, for the wonderful and diverse ways they are advancing the work of the Center for Islamic Studies and the GTU, and for their important leadership roles in bridging academia with the larger public. We also gratefully acknowledge the faculty who served on these thesis and dissertation committees and to the staff for their support.
The CIS congratulates and celebrates Dr. May Kosba, who is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Program in African Studies at Princeton University. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and we are so proud of Dr. Kosba and wish her every success at Princeton!