[Peace] [CIMIC-Announce] Two events tomorrow

[Naeem Sheikh]

Greetings dear subscribers to the CIMIC events announcement list,

It is April -- the month that usually sees the most number of events and 
speakers. Here are two events on Islam at UIUC campus tomorrow -- I sent 
announcement on one of them last week as well.

Happy learning.

Best regards,

Naeem Sheikh
Outreach Committee
Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center (CIMIC)
www.cimic.org



Translating Islam into Chinese: The Han Kitab Since 1642
Date
 
04/02/2009
Time
 
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm  
Location
 
Humanities Lecture Hall, IPRH Building, 805 W. Pennsylvania Avenue
Speaker
 
Jonathan Lipman, Mount Holyoke College
 
Sponsor
 
IPRH Reading Group with Center for Global Studies

Beginning in the late Ming period, Sino-Muslim thinkers rendered Islamic texts 
and ideas into the written idiom of their native land. Using the mixed Neo- 
Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist vocabulary of China's intellectual elite--plus 
infusions from Matteo Ricci and his Roman Catholic colleagues--writers such as 
Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, and Liu Zhi created a substantial literature which modern 
Sino-Muslims call the "Han kitab." Their methods, motivations, and achievements 
(for those texts are still read today) stand as an important example of 
cultural translation and innovative simultaneity. This talk presents the texts 
in their cultural and religious context--including connections to earlier 
translations of Judaism, Catholicism, and Buddhism into Chinese--with some 
thoughts for comparative study of the Mediterranean monotheisms in motion. 
Cosponsors: Center for Advanced Study, Department of Religion, Department of 
History, Center for Global Studies, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 
Program in Comparative and World Literature, Department of East Asian Languages 
and Cultures, Muslim Law Students Association
 

 
"The Significance of Islamic Intellectual History for Contemporary Muslims" - 
at Champaign, IL
Date
 
04/02/2009
Time
 
7:30 pm  
Location
 
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum: 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana
Speaker
 
Dr. Mohammed Fadel, University of Toronto
 
Sponsors:
 
Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Global Studies, 
Department of Religion, Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center, Muslim 
Student Association, and Illinois Network on Islam and Muslim Societies 
(I-NIMS)
Cost
 
Cost: free, open to the public

Education in the Muslim world has radically changed as a result of 
modernization programs adopted by Muslim political and cultural elites 
beginning in the 19th century. One of the consequences of these reform programs 
has been a pronounced decline -- if not outright collapse -- of interest in the 
theoretical Islamic sciences such as theology (kalam) and ethics (usul 
al-fiqh). As a result, educated Muslims, unless they attended seminaries (and 
attained advanced training there), can only engage religious texts in a naive, 
quasi-literalist fashion. Muslim reformers, therefore, generally engage in a 
strategy of 're-reading' revelation in order to advance their goals rather 
than, for example, arguing that the reforms are good and desirable in 
themselves. Dr. Fadel believes that this strategy at best leads to inconclusive 
results and at worst undermines the Islamic credibility of reform projects. An 
alternative reform strategy is possible if modern Muslims take the problems 
posed in traditional Islamic theological and ethical discussions and apply them 
to contemporary problems.
 
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