Monday 5/11:
Dr. Jamillah Karim
is an award-winning author, speaker, and blogger. She specializes in race, gender, and Islam in America. Jamillah is author of
Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam
(with Dawn-Marie Gibson) and
American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender Within the Ummah
, which was awarded the 2008 Book Award in Social Sciences by the Association for Asian American Studies. In 2014, her scholarly activism was recognized by JET magazine, which featured her as a young faith leader in the African American community. Jamillah is a former associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Spelman College. She holds a BSE in electrical engineering and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Duke University.
Tuesday 5/12:
Dr. Younus Mirza
is a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University and Director of the
Barzinji Project
at Shenandoah University which seeks to enhance America’s relationship with Muslim-majority countries. He defended his dissertation in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University and has taught at Millsaps and Allegheny Colleges. His current research focuses on the relationship between the Bible and the Qur’an and the shared stories between them. He is a co-author of the book
The Bible and the Qur’an: Biblical Figures in the Islamic Tradition
and has published in various journals.
Wednesday 5/13:
Imam Wahy-ud Deen Sharif
is a student of Imam W. Deen Mohammed (raa) and the Imam (religious leader) of Masjid Waarith ud Deen. He co-founded
Waris Associates Inc
. in 1984, which led to the establishment of the Waris Cultural Research and Development Center and Masjid Waarith ud Deen in Irvington NJ. These organizations develop and implement spiritual, educational, recreational, cultural and social programs that address the challenges facing American families today. Imam Sharif also serves as the Executive Director of
ComWealth Economic Development Corporation
(EDC), a non-profit economic development corporation. He is the Convener of the Council of Imams in New Jersey and co-founder of the New African Partnership between CINJ and City National Bank in Newark. He was a Senior Advisor to former Mayor, now Senator, Cory A. Booker, and attended an Iftar (breaking of the Ramadan Fast) at the White House as a guest of President Barack Obama in 2012.
Thursday 5/14: Coral Qadar
is currently the convener of The Muslim Health Consortium. Coral has been a registered professional nurse for more than 30 years, specializing in a variety of Obstetrical Nursing disciplines such as Labor and Delivery, Newborn Nursery, High Risk Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine. Coral has also been a clinical nursing supervisor and quality assurance nursing supervisor responsible for training home-care nurses to care for mechanically ventilated patients. Coral is the founder of
Mothersmind
, a platform for promoting, sustaining and enhancing the health of women, families and home life. She is also a writer, and the author of
For Sakinah: A Muslim Woman's Reflections on Being a Bride
. As a student of "America's Imam" W. Deen Mohammed, Coral seeks to further the essential Abrahamic-Islamic message that there is but One G-d, One Creation, and One Human Family. She and her husband of 40 years have seven children and were blessed to become grandparents to their first grandchild in March of 2020.
Friday 5/15:
Dr. Mona Hassan
is Associate Professor of Religious Studies & History at Duke University in the departments of History and Religious Studies and the programs of International Comparative Studies and Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies. She has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States and obtained her Ph.D. from Princeton University, specializing in global Islamic history. Her first book
Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History
(Princeton University Press, 2017) received the American Academy of Religion’s 2017 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Historical Studies. She has also researched and published on the shifting contours of women’s Islamic scholarship from the emergence of the Muslim community in the seventh century to the secular interventions of modern nation-states in the present.
Nightly taraweeh this week will be led by
Sheikh Omar Jabbie,
from Sierra Leone, who memorized the Quran at the age of 14. He attended The Islamic University of Madina in the holy city of the Prophet Mohamed PBUH. Later graduation with his bachelors degree from the faculty of Islamic Jurisprudence.