[Peace] Arabic Class and Open House

[Naeem Sheikh]

Greetings Dear Subscribers to the CIMIC Announcements List and the 
Education List,

[My apologies if some of you get this message twice because of being 
on both lists.]

We wanted to write to you and update you on two items of community 
interest. First is that the feedback we received in open houses the 
past year highlighted some topics that community members wanted to see 
addresses in future CIMIC open houses. One topic that was requested 
was Islam and militancy. In response to this request, CIMIC Outreach 
Committee is pleased to announce that we are organizing an Open House 
with the theme : An Exploration of the Meaning of Jihad.

This Open House is on Saturday the 31st of March from 1 to 6 PM. The 
keynote speaker is Dr. Jamal Badawi, a professor emeritus from Saint 
Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. His brief biography 
is included at the end of this email. Other than the keynote speech, 
there will be documentaries, book reviews, multimedia presentations, 
quizzes, food, and most importantly dialogue. Please try to attend and 
spread the word to friends, neighbors, colleagues.

For more information visit http://www.cimic.org.

The second item of note is that in response to popular demand, we are 
organizing another section of Introductory Arabic Class in addition to 
the one underway.

This section will meet on Wednesdays at 6:30 to 7:30 PM and Sundays 5:00 to 
6:00 PM. The first meeting will be on Wednesday the 28th of March, and the 
course will last 10 weeks.

The course fee is $150 and this includes textbook and other materials.

For more information and registration visit http://www.cimic.org. 
Email arabic at cimic.org if you have any questions.

CIMIC Outreach Committee

---

Jamal Badawi is a professor emeritus at Saint  Mary's
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada  where he is 
cross-appointed faculty member in  the Departments of Religious 
Studies and  Management. He completed his undergraduate  studies in 
Cairo, Egypt and his Masters and Ph.D.  degrees at Indiana University, 
Bloomington,  Indiana.

Dr. Badawi has authored several books and articles on Islam. He  also 
researched, designed and presented a 352-segment television  series on 
Islam, shown on many local public television stations in  Canada, the 
US and in abroad. Audio and video copies of this  series are widely 
available throughout out the world. He is known  among Muslims and 
non-Muslims alike for his enjoyable speaking  style and easily 
understood basic, foundational teaching materials  about Islam as well 
as aspects of Islam that are often  misunderstood by non-Muslims, 
particularly gender relations and  Muslim.

Jamal Badawi has been instrumental in establishing Muslim  interfaith 
dialogues throughout North America, and is the founder  and chairman 
of the Islamic Information Foundation, a non-profit  foundation 
seeking to promote a better understanding of Islam and  Muslims for 
non-Muslims. Dr. Badawi is also a founding member of  the Islamic 
Society of North America (ISNA). He is currently a  Guest Scholar at 
The American Learning Institute for Muslims. Dr.  Badawi may be 
rightly described as a North American Islamic  scholar. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Badawi