This talk has been cancelled due to inclement weather. We will update you when it is re-scheduled.

January 24, 2016; 2PM

Quail Ridge Books, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh, NC 27607

Panelists include:

Carl Ernst, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

More about Carl Ernst:
“I am a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. My published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of three areas: general and critical issues of Islamic studies, premodern and contemporary Sufism, and Indo-Muslim culture. My most recent projects in Islamic studies have addressed issues of public scholarship relating to Islamophobia, the problem of reading the Qur’an, a critical rethinking of Islamic studies, and problems in understanding Islam. My studies of Sufism have engaged with the literary, historical, and contemporary aspects of Islamic mysticism, particularly in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and the Persianate cultural sphere. I have also been pursuing a long-term study of Muslim interpretations of Indian religions, particularly with regard to the practice of yoga.”

Read more here:
http://religion.unc.edu/_people/full-time-faculty/ernst/

Manzoor Cheema, Founding Member of Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia (MERI) and Muslims for Social Justice (MSJ)

More about Manzoor Cheema:
“Cheema is a human rights activist who has long spoken out about discrimination against Muslims, and last year won a humanitarian award for his activism. This week he’s leading a panel discussion on Islamophobia at Wake Forest University that he helped organize.
Cheema also works with groups in his native Pakistan to curb discrimination against Christians, who are in the minority there. His overall goal, he says, is to educate and unite people from a wide variety of backgrounds against intolerance and extremism.
“I’m all for painting those pictures of peace and justice so that we can defeat the extremist elements in both societies,” he says. “Extremists here paint all Muslims as terrorists, and there are people in the Muslim world whose only vision of the United States is war and occupation.”
Cheema co-founded Muslims for Social Justice in 2013 and has been a member of the Triangle Interfaith Alliance since 2010. Before that, he produced a popular public access news show that combined international and local reporting on social causes.
“He’s so passionate, and he represents his community very well,” says Lana Dial, president of the Triangle Interfaith Alliance.”