Rabbi Dr. Robert Daum

17 lecturers, 80 hours, 37 students from 20 countries: IP Director learns about Islam

Seventeen professors specializing in aspects of Muslim cultures around the world delivered a combined total of over 80 hours of lectures within a two-week intensive course offered in downtown Vancouver at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in July.

Among the 37 students from 20 countries around the world enrolled in this landmark program was Iona Pacific Director, Rabbi Dr. Robert Daum. The lecturers came from SFU, UBC Vancouver, UBC Okanagan, the University of Victoria, Aga Khan University (London), and Pomona College in California. The topics included “Thinking of Islam and Muslims in the West,” “Approaching Scriptures: The Qur`an,” “Pre-Muslim Milieux: from the Nile to the Indus,” “The exemplary biography: the Prophet and Others,” “The Formation of Muslim Communities,” “Islamist Political Parties in Context,” “Art, Space and Islam,” “Law in Society: Muslim Contexts,” “Pluralism and Rooted Identities,” “Thinking of Gender in Muslim Societies,” “Islamic Family Law in Southeast Asia,” “Popular Culture and School Curricula,” “Gender, Scripture and Society in Islam,” “Female Voices in Persian Literature,” “Muslim Women’s Trans/national Discourses,” “Gendering Premodern Art and Architecture,” “Uyghur Women between Islam and Communism,” and “Gender and Swahili Modernities.”

The summer intensive is co-sponsored by Simon Fraser University’s Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at Aga Khan University in London.

The program included “A Tour of Muslim Spaces of Vancouver.” This tour brought the students to the Ismaili Jamatkhana and Centre and the Burnaby Masjid As-Salaam and Islamic Centre. Both site tours were conducted by their architects: Bruno Freschi, O.C. and Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, who also designed Expo 86, and Sharif Senbel, who designed three local mosques and was awarded the Faith and Form Religious Architecture Award.

According to Rabbi Dr. Daum, Director of Iona Pacific, “This program is an extraordinary opportunity for me to learn more about a core dimension of Iona Pacific’s work. What I am learning will deepen my understanding of the complexity and the diversity of Islam and of Muslim cultures, which is essential for my research, my teaching, and my work in the community.”