To say that Islam is misunderstood would be misleading. It would be much more accurate to say that Islam is not understood at all — at least by most people in the United States. What many of us think we know is actually manufactured disinformation, deliberately spread to demonize and divide for political reasons. In truth, Islam and Christianity have far more in common than we might realize. Today, we’re joined by Mairaj Syed, a renowned expert in Islam, who will walk us through the similarities, the differences, the consequences, and the opportunities.

Bio: Mairaj Syed, Director of the Middle East/South Asia Studies Program in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, utilizes statistical and computational analytical techniques to understand the development of hadith literature in the first three centuries of Islam. He is currently researching the application of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to create a fully annotated digital corpus of Islamic thought, and the exploration of the heritage of Islamic thought for both interpretive and constructive purposes, with a particular emphasis on addressing contemporary moral and political issues. Syed is a Fulbright Fellow and holds an M.A., Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University as well as a B.A. in Business from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Publications:

• Islamic Law Blog

• Coercion and Responsibility in Islam: A Study in Ethics and Law

• Translation