Ahmed Afzaal

Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Religion
Phone: (218) 299-3423
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Degrees and Education:

  • Ph.D. (2006) from Drew University (Madison, NJ) in Religion & Society. Dissertation: The "One True God" in History and Society: A Meta-Hermeneutical Critique of Rodney Stark's Sociology of Monotheism.
  • M.B.,B.S. (1992) from Dow Medical College, Karachi (Pakistan)

Courses Taught:

  • REL 100 "Christianity and Religious Diversity"
  • REL 334 "Monotheisms: Jewish, Christian, Islamic"
  • REL 384 "Exploring Islam"
  • REL 362 "Approaching the Qur'an"
  • REL 388 "Religion, Violence, and Nonviolence"
  • REL 331: "Understanding Religion"
  • REL 234 "Symbol, Myth, and Ritual"

Research / Teaching Interests:

  • Religion and Social Theory
  • Religion and Ecology
  • Islamic Theology, Ethics, and Mysticism
  • Islam and Modernity
  • Principled and Strategic Nonviolence
  • Muhammad Iqbal
  • Christian-Muslim Relations

Scholarly Activities:

Publications

Entries on "Muhammad Iqbal" and "Javid Iqbal" in Springer's Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. Forthcoming.

Entry on “Nonviolence” in Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton, NJ, 2011. Forthcoming

“Disenchantment & the Ecological Crisis: Max Weber, Lynn White Jr., and Muhammad Iqbal” in Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology. 2011. Forthcoming.

"Deciphering Political Language" New Clear Vision, June 22, 2011.

"Read, Don't Burn: Out of Darkness Comes Light" New Clear Vision, April 8, 2011.

"Healthy Boundaries: Searching Hight and Low for Common Ground" New Clear Vision, March 25, 2011.

"Nonviolence: From Mecca to Montgomery" New Clear Vision, February 24, 2011.

"Kinship in Thought and Clash of Civilizations" in Tidsskrift om Islam & Kristendom3/2010, pp. 37-43.

"Iqbal's Approach to the Qur'an" in Muhammad Suheyl Umar and Basit Bilal Koshul (Eds). Muhammad Iqbal, A Contemporary: Celebrating the Centenary of Iqbal's Stay in Europe (1905-1908), Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan, 2010, pp. 7-26.

Jihad without Violence. Warren, MI: Islamic Organization of North America, 2010.

"Between Suspicion and Trust" Intersections, Fall 2009, pp. 10-15.

"Free Speech Comes with a Price Tag" The Forum, October 12, 2008.

"Ignorance of Islam is Shocking" The Forum, September 23, 2007.

"Losing My Religion: A Call for Help" (Book Review) The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 4, Fall 2005, pp. 117-120.

"The Flame of Sinai: Hope and Vision in Iqbal" (Book Review) The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 2, Spring 2004, pp. 132-134.

"Fundamentalist and Modernist Debates in Islam: A Reader" (Book Review) The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2004, pp. 97-99.

"Islam and Jihad: Prejudice versus Reality" (Book Review) Islamic Studies Vol. 42, No. 4, Winter 2003. pp. 715-718.

Entries on Sufism, Tawhid, and Ibn Al-'Arabi in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (Eds. Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan), 2005.

"The Origin of Islam as a Social Movement" Islamic Studies Vol. 42, No. 2, Summer 2003. pp. 203-243.

"The Other as Mirror: Scriptural Reasoning and the Hermeneutics of Ibn Al-‘Arabi" The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning Vol. 3, No. 2. August 2003. 

"Denying the Undeniable: Pharaoh and the Signs of God" The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning Vol. 2, No. 2. September 2002.  

Presentations

September 2011. "My Political Education Since 9/11"
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND

April 2011. "Islam & Nonviolence"
Muslim Community Association, San Jose, CA 

October 2010: "Islam as News"
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND

October 2010: "Bridging the Christian-Muslim Divide: Interfaith Solidarity for Positive Peace"
Annual Conference, Peace & Justice Studies Association, Winnipeg (Canada)

September 2010: "Islam: Practice, Faith, & Beauty" (Three Presentations)
Trinity Lutheran Church, Moorhead, MN

March 2010: "Diversity, Pluralism, and American Islam"
Fargo Public School, Fargo, ND

January 2010: "Domination Systems"
Unitarian Universalist Church, Fargo, ND

October 2009: "Civilization and the Origin of War"
Concordia College, Moorhead, MN

April 2009: "A Common Word"
University of Minnesota, Crookston, MN

February 2009: "Religion and Organized Violence"
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND

October 2008: "Obsession and Radical Islam" (Panel)
North Dakota State University

June 2008: "The Place of Qur'an/Scripture in Iqbal's Thought" (Paper)
University of Cambridge, UK

March 2008: "Al-Ghazali's Deliverance from Error" (Workshop)
Muslim Community Association, Santa Clara, CA

January/February 2008: "Islam in Four Dimensions" (Four Presentations)
Bethesda Lutheran Church, Moorhead, MN

December 2007: "Introducing Islam"
Immanuel Lutheran Church in Hendrum, MN

April 2006: "Hermeneutics & the Future of Islam in America"
Yale University, New Haven, CT (Seminar Paper)

May 2004: "Islam and Modernization"
Islamic Information Center, Las Vegas, NV (Workshop)

April 2004: "Religion and Modern Times"
Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY (Seminar)

April 2004: "Gender in Islam"
New York University, New York, NY (Panel)

March 2004: "Prophetic Mysticism"
Islamic Information Center, Las Vegas, NV (Workshop)

September 2003: "Islam and Empire"
Drew University, Madison, NJ

April 2003: "Environmental Justice"
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (Panel)

April 2003: "The Origin of Islam as a Social Movement"
Yale University, New Haven, CT (Paper)

November 2002: "Islam and Ecology"
Drew University, Madison, NJ

October 2002: "Muslim Stereotypes"
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (Panel)

October 2002: "Introducing Islam"
Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ

July 2002: "Islam and Nonviolence"
Muslim Center of New York, Flushing, NY (Workshop)

March 2002: "Islam after 9/11"
United Methodist Church, Madison, NJ