Peer Talks

Humaray Aslaf

Guest: Pirzada Muneeb Ahmed

#PeerTalks #PirSabaq #Sufism

LOUD THINKING   

#PeerTalks with Maryam Khan on Challenges for South Asian Youth in the USA

Maryam Khan is the Executive Director is Lost Voices of South Asia, a non-profit organization aiming to unite the South Asian Diaspora. 

She is 17 years old, based in the Washington D.C area, and is a senior in high school. She is involved in many extra-curricular school activities, some of which include: MSA, MUN, Leo Club, the Varsity Tennis Team, and has even started her own club, The Social Awareness Club. "I started this initiative, as a way to mobilize youth all across the county." She is an activist who would like to make a profound impact. She hopes by providing a platform for people that do not have a voice. By increasing civic engagement, she is fulfilling her responsibility to give back. She serves on the board of multiple youth-led organizations, some of which include, Climate Strike VA and The Tomorrow Project. She also has been serving as an advocate for the ethnically persecuted minorities, including Kashmiris, the Uighurs, and the Rohingya, through my work with Justice for All. She also has served her own community by advocating for domestically abused women in the NOVA area. She hopes to use her platform and privilege to voice concerns about the silenced people of South Asia.

#SouthAsian #Youth

JAIZA

U.S. Presidential Elections 2020 with Zahoor Nadeem

#PeerTalks #US #PresidentialElections

#PeerTalks with Prof. Yohanan Friedmann (Israel)  

Prof. Yohanan Friedmann is an Israeli scholar of Islamic studies.

#Prof.Yohanan #Friedmann was born in Zákamenné, Czechoslovakia, and immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1949. He attended high school at the Reali School in Haifa (1945-1950). In 1956 he began his undergraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, receiving his BA in 1959. In 1962 he finished a master's degree in Arabic literature; his thesis was on the Arab poet Al-Ma'arri. After this, Friedman went to McGill University in Montreal to study for his doctorate. He learned Urdu and focused on the history of Islam in India. His dissertation on Muslim religious thinker Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi was approved in 1966. In the same year, Friedman joined the Hebrew University and was appointed lecturer in Islamic studies.

He is now Max Schloessinger Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and, since 1999, a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He held several offices with the University: Chair of the Institute of Asian Studies and African Studies from 1975-1978; Chair of the Graduate School from 1980-1983; Dean of Humanities from 1985-1988; Chair of the Department of Arabic language and literature from 2002-2004. In 2003 he was the Sternberg Distinguished Lecturer. In 2007 he has been elected Chair of the Humanities Division of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

In 2002 Friedmann was a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2003 he received the Landau Prize in the Humanities. Since 1993, he has been the editor of Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. Friedmann served several times as a visiting Professor at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997 he was a scholar in residence with the Rockefeller Foundation.

#Israel 

LOUD THINKING   

#PeerTalks with Prof. Yossi Shain on Path to Peace

Prof. Yossi Shain (born September 21, 1956, in Israel) is the Romulo Betancourt Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University where he also serves as Head of TAU's School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs, head of the Abba Eban Graduate Studies Program in Diplomacy and Director of the Frances Brody Institute for Applied Diplomacy. He is also a Full Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics at Georgetown University, and the Founding Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization (PJC) at Georgetown. In 2007, he also served (pro-bono) as President of Western Galilee College. Shain earned his B.A. (Philosophy-1981 cum laude) and M.A. (Political Science-1983) degrees from Tel Aviv University and received his Ph.D. in Political Science (with distinction) from Yale University in 1988. In July 2016 professor Shain was appointed as a member of the Council for Higher Education in Israel, and he is now heading the national committee in charge of rejuvenating liberal arts and the humanities.

#Peace #Prof.Yossi #Israel 

JAIZA

U.S. Presidential Elections   2020  

 Expert: Pir Zubair Shah       

working as International Multimedia Journalist with Voice of America Pashto language service in Washington DC.  

#PeerTalks #US #PresidentialElections

LOUD THINKING

#PeerTalks with Cynthia Lukas on In search of Rumi

Cynthia Lukas is a U. S. Filmmaker on a spiritual path.  She produces, directs, and writes documentaries that educate and inspire on topics of peace and oneness.  Her most recently co-produced films include a PBS biography of the great Sufi poet, “Rumi Returning,” filmed on location at Rumi’s shrine in Konya, Turkey, and two PBS biographies of the Master of Nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi, “Gandhi‘s Awakening “ and “Gandhi’s Gift,” filmed on location in India, South Africa, and the UK.

She is also a poet, novelist, and writer of memoir and former college teacher and City Councilwoman.  She is an avid environmentalist and activist for peace and justice.  

#Rumi #Sufism

#PeerTalks with Cherif Ahmed Tidjani (Morocco) on Cheikh Ahmed Al-Tijani and Sufism in Africa  

Abū al-ʻAbbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad at-Tijāniyy or Ahmed Tijani (Arabic: أحمد التجاني‎, 1735–1815, was the Berber founder of the Tijaniyyah tariqa (Sufi order). in Aïn Madhi in Algeria, and died in Fez, Morocco, at the age of 80.  

Tijani was born in 1735 in Ain Madi, the son of Muhammad al-Mukhtar. He traced his descent to a Berber Tribe, Tijani. When he was sixteen, Tijani lost both parents as a result of a plague. By then he was already married. He learned Quran under the tutelage of Mohammed Ba'afiyya in Ain Madi and also studied Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi's Islamic jurisprudence works that were written under Malikite rites.[6] He also studied Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī's Risala ila al-sufiyya. In 1757, Tijani left his village for Fez. While there, he joined three Sufi brotherhoods, the Qadiriyya, the Nasiriyya, and the tariqa of Ahmad al-Habib b. Muhammed. In Fez, he met a seer who told him he would achieve spiritual revelation (faith). Thereafter, he left Fez to teach at al-Abiad, spending five years at the village. In 1772, he began a journey to Mecca for hajj and to seek a Sufi way of life. During his journey, he was initiated into the Khalwati order at Azwawi. He later taught for a year at Tunis where he achieved some success. He left Tunis for Egypt where he met Mahmud al-Kurdi of the Khalwati order in Cairo. Tijani reached Mecca in late 1773 and performed hajj rites. In his quest to seek a Sufi way of life, he met Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah El Hindi, who rarely saw people except for his servant. He also met Abd-Karim al-Samman, founder of the Sammaniyya branch of Khalwati. Al-Samman told Tijani he will become a dominant Qutb (pole) or a scholar within the Sufi orders in the region. Tijani left Mecca and returned to Cairo where he got al-Kurdi's blessing to preach the Khalwatiyya order. From Cairo, he settled at Tlemcen for a couple of years.  

Tijani later settled at Boussemghoun, an oasis seventy-five miles south of El Bayadh. It was at Samghun that Tijani received a vision from the prophet who told him to start a new Sufi order. He left his previous affiliations with other Sufi orders and claimed divine instructions from the prophet Mohammed. Tijani's order soon gained attraction in the desert regions surrounding Abi Samghun. Shaykh Tijani lived in Abi Samghun for about fifteen years. In 1796 he went to Fez, marking the real beginning of his Tariqa.  

In Fez, Tijani was well received by Mawlay Sulayman, the Moroccan Sultan. Though Sulayman disliked other Sufi orders, he provided Tijani a house and appointed him as a member of his learned council. At first, Tijani chose the mosque of Moulay Idris to pray but performed the rites of the Tijani order in his house. Tijani later built his own zawiya. In Fez, he sent his trusted aides to spread the word of his order. Trusted aides such as Abu Hafs' Abdul-Rahman were sent to Oran and Algiers and Abdul-Salam al-Waghiri to Constantine, Algeria. Further muqaddams were appointed among learned converts including Muhammad Fuwadir al-Abdallawi in the Jarid district of Tunisia and Muhammed al-Hafiz in Mauritania.  

#Sufi #AhmedTijani #Sufism in #Africa #SufiAfrica

#PeerTalks with Raj Kumar (USA)  

Raj Kumar is a peace and youth activist from interior Sindh, Pakistan. Mr. Kumar is also the first Pakistani to receive the young emerging leaders' award by the U.S Department of State for his work in Pakistan on countering violent extremism and women empowerment. An activist working on education, interfaith harmony, and sustainable development. Currently, he's pursuing his masters in International Relations from Baruch College NYC and volunteering his time as Director Advocacy for Lost Voices of South Asia ( A nonprofit organization based in Washington DC) 

 #RajKumar #YouthActivist

JAIZA 

Pakistan’s Army Chief Visits Saudi Arabia Amid Strained Ties. Demands, Rumors, and Possibilities in Future Relations   

Pakistan’s military chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa traveled to Saudi Arabia on Monday (August 16, 2020) for daylong official meetings amid reports of rare strains in historically close relations between the two key Muslim nations.  

A brief Pakistani army statement said Bajwa met with Saudi Arabia's Gen. Fayyad bin Hamid Al-Ruwaili, chairman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and other top commanders to discuss military ties, including training exchanges. It did not give further details.   

#Pakistan #SaudiArab #PeerTalks