Title of Talk: “Giving an A+ Islam 101 Presentation”

Synopsis: When giving “Introduction to Islam” talks, Muslims often face an uphill battle: audiences are not neutral toward Islam and Muslims, but instead have been conditioned to fear Muslims through negative images in popular culture and terror-related news stories. Additionally, most Americans admit that they know very little about Islam and do not personally know a Muslim. This lecture will share an innovative, narrative-based method for speakers to introduce Islam and Muslims to the general public and will offer practical solutions on how to handle hostile audience members.

Speaker bio:
Hind Makki is an educator, consultant and writer whose work is hosted on the Muslim channel at Patheos. She has worked extensively within the American Muslim community on civic integration, interfaith dialogue and leadership development since 2001, delivering hundreds of trainings and lectures throughout the United States and Western Europe.  Her workshops focus on social cohesion through interfaith cooperation and civic engagement and introducing diverse audiences to Islam. In 2008 she participated in the “Muslim Youth Project” exchange program to The Netherlands and was a Fellow of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute.  In 2012, Hind was a Community Outreach Coordinator for _The Light in Her Eyes_, a documentary about a girls’ Quran school in Syria. Her work has been published in The New York Time and she has appeared on Al Jazeera English and Huffington Post Live. Hind received her BA in International Relations from Brown University.

Date: Wednesday, May 22th, 2013

Time: 6:00pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture

Venue: American Islamic College, Chicago

Free parking available at 613 W. Bittersweet Pl. Chicago, IL 60613

* This lecture will be broad casted live at USTREAM channel

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Title: DISORIENTED: THE LEGAL ORIGINS OF ARAB-AMERICAN MIS-IDENTITY
Abstract:
This lecture interrogates the legal origins of Arab-American identity during the racially restrictive Naturalization Era (1790 through 1952). Not a single law review article systematically examines how these naturalization cases have shaped contemporary understandings of Arab-American identity. Almost all of the literature on Arab-Americans focuses on how the government’s response to the September 11th terrorist attacks rendered Arabs, Muslims and Middle Eastern people vulnerable to both legalized forms of racial surveillance and violence. While this body of work is important, it both conflates Arab identity with Middle Eastern and Muslim identity and pays insufficient attention to racial antecedents to post-9/11 treatment of Arab-Americans – antecedents that the naturalization cases legally produced.
Naturalization Era judges deployed culture, concerns about assimilation, and most centrally, Islam to mark Arabs as “different.” The notion of Arabs as unnaturally American grew out of the progressive conflation of Arab identity with Islam, which roots and sustains the prevailing misnomer that Islam and Arab are synonymous and interchangeable identities. This conflation did not emerge for the first time in the aftermath of 9/11, but finds its doctrinal origins during the Naturalization Era.
The Naturalization Era courts adopted a geopolitical binary that pitted American citizenship against immigrants from the “Arab-Muslim” world. The adoption of this binary complicated the citizenship claims of Syrian Christian immigrants and obstructed the petitions of Arab Muslims – until the latter’s citizenship interests converged with broadening US aspirations in the region following World War II. While the redeployment of this binary continues to confound an authentic understanding of Arab- American identity, the origins of mis-identity are firmly rooted in the Naturalization Era.

Speaker Bio:

Khaled A. Beydoun earned his B.A. (with distinction) in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan in 2000.  Thereafter, he received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 2004.  While at law school, Beydoun was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Islamic & Near Eastern Law, on the staff of the Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, and on the executive board of the National Latino/a Law Student Association.  He earned his LL.M. degree from the University of Toronto School of Law in 2008, where he served as senior articles editor of the Toronto Law Review.

Upon graduation from UCLA Law, Beydoun worked as a legal analyst for the ABA Rule of Law Initiative, Middle East and North Africa desk. He also served as an attorney and an organizer in a joint project of the ACLU and the African American Policy Forum in Michigan during the campaign to adopt Proposal 2, a statewide, anti-affirmative action initiative. After earning his LL.M., Beydoun worked as an attorney in the office of the State Appellate Defender of Michigan, representing indigent clients. Recently, he has served as a legal consultant for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.  He is also a founding member of a non-profit NGO, the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association which promotes the rule of law and democracy in Egypt.

Beydoun is already actively engaged in legal scholarship. His articles include, “Fast-Tracking Women into Parliamentary Seats in the Arab World” published in the Southwestern Journal of International Law (2011); “Laïcité, Liberalism and the Headscarf” in Taylor & Francis’ Journal of Islamic Law and Culture (2008); “Without Color of Law: The Losing Race against Colorblindness in Michigan” in the Michigan Journal of Race & Law (2007); “Resegregation by Referendum” in the Harvard Hispanic Journal of Policy (2006); and “The Trafficking of Domestic Workers into Lebanon” in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.  He has written several white papers and policy analyses, along with a book on mortgages under Islamic law.  And, he has been active in various news media, writing editorials and articles and appearing on radio and TV, including CNN and MSNBC.

Date: Wednesday, June 12th, 2013

Time: 6:00pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture

Venue: American Islamic College, Chicago

Free parking available at 613 W. Bittersweet Pl. Chicago, IL 60613

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NBA’s Utah Jazz player, Enes Kanter, stopped by the American Islamic College (AIC) on Friday, May 3rd. He met with AIC’s I. President, Dr. H. Ali Yurtsever and learned about the college.

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Title: Religion and Politics in the Middle East: Turkey in Comparative Perspective

Theme:

The end of the Cold War brought a world-wide recognition of liberal democracy as a legitimate model of government. Building on one another, there has been a general tendency in various regions of the world towards more democratic governance. This trend, starting in Southern Europe and Latin America in the mid 1970s, continued in parts of East and South Asia since the mid 1980s and the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Huntington regarded all these developments as components of a global democratic trend, namely the “third wave” of democracy. Except flawed attempts of liberalization in some parts of the Middle East in the 1990s, Middle East has been outside of this trend. The Arab spring is changing all this. The Islamist parties swept the polls and came to power in Tunisians, Egypt and Morocco. Turkey’s politics diverges from and converges to other Middle Eastern countries. However, the Arab Spring made the Turkish experience of democracy much more relevant to the region. I try to provide compelling answers to many questions related to democratization in the Middle East in light of the Turkish experience: Will the Arab Spring make a rupture with the authoritarian past? How it reshapes political landscape in many countries? What are the prospects of genuine democracy in the Middle East?

Speaker Bio:

Kıvanç Ulusoy is currently a Fulbright Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is Associate Professor of Politics at the Istanbul University. He was previously a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence and Fellow at the Madrid Diplomatic School. His areas of research include regime change and democratization, Turkish politics and Turkey-EU relations, and Spanish politics. Dr. Ulusoy has conducted studies at the Departments of Political Science and International Relations in various universities such as the Middle East Technical University, Bogazici University and Sabanci University in Turkey; Granada University in Spain; Stockholm University in Sweden; and Tsukuba University in Japan. Some of his recent publications are “Saving the State Again: Turks face the Challenge of European Governance”, SIGMA Papers, (Paris: OECD, 2005); “Turkey’s reform reconsidered, 1987-2004”, Democratization, June 2007; “The Europeanization of Turkey and its Impact on the Cyprus issue”, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, December 2008; “The Changing Challenge of Europeanization to Politics and Governance in Turkey”, International Political Science Review, Vol. 30, No. 3, (November 2009); “The European Impact on State-Religion Relations in Turkey: Political Islam, Alevis and Non-Muslim Minorities”, Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 46, No. 3, (2011).

Date: Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Time: 6:00pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture

Venue: American Islamic College, Chicago

Free parking available at 613 W. Bittersweet Pl. Chicago, IL 60613

* This lecture will be broad casted live at USTREAM channel

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A brilliant presentation by Dr. John Demartini addressing your true hidden agendas and unconscious motives relating to your physical body. Dr. Demartini is a renowned human behavioral specialist, a revered chiropractor and an international authority on the mind body connection with a background of over 40 years in-depth study covering over 260 ‘ologies’ with a primary focus on health, disease, healing and wellbeing.

In this evening talk Dr. Demartini will be delving into the mechanics of the mind and its connection to health, wellbeing and the reasons behind the things we do or don’t do to achieve our health and wellness goals. We have incredible capacity to create profound transformations in our psychology and physiology through the power of our perceptions. When we take command of how we perceive things we change the labels and our misperceptions about our own health and wellbeing. This presentation addresses the unlimited healing power of a balanced mind and includes ground breaking information on conquering various forms of addiction.

If you wish that you could be more driven to exercise, lose the pounds, stay focused on healthy eating, quit smoking, cut back on drinking alcohol, or simply, just be more balanced in your approach to your health, wellness and your physical body; if you wish that you could appreciate your body more and feel less stressed and tense about your health and the way you look or feel; if you would you love to know why and how to change your health and wellbeing strategies? Then join Dr. John Demartini for his presentation Mind Over Body so you learn how to stay focused on your health goals, lead a more balanced, healthy and vital life and most important, learn how to appreciate yourself for who you are regardless of your outer or inner health or disease.

Speaker & bio:

Dr. John Demartini is a human behavior specialist, leadership & success strategist, internationally published author and a sought after authority on maximizing human awareness & potential. For more information on Dr. John Demartini and upcoming events contact the Demartini Institute: Houston, USA sales@drdemartini.com or +1 713 850 1234. Website: www.DrDemartini.com

Date: May 2nd, 2013

Venue: American Islamic College

Time: 6:00pm – 6:30pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture and Q&A

Free parking at AIC parking on 613 Bittersweet Pl

FREE AND OPEN TO PUBLIC

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Speaker & bio:

MARIA del SOCORRO PESQUEIRA

Maria Pesqueira has over two decades of leadership experience in the human service arena, bringing expert perspective to areas including strategic planning and management, program development, communications, fundraising and public health. She also is a sought-after speaker, addressing national and local audiences on issues ranging from private/nonprofit partnerships, women’s issues, health disparities and to the future of philanthropy.

In 2000, Pesqueira was named President and CEO to Mujeres Latinas en Accion, one of the longest standing Latina human service organizations in the nation. Under her leadership Mujeres received the prestigious ORBA Award for Nonprofit Financial Management Excellence; moved Mujeres’ main office to a newly renovated 14,000 square foot facility and opened two additional satellite offices.  Previous to Mujeres, Maria was the Director of Development for the National Museum of Mexican Art where she started and grew the Museum’s resource development office, and completed its $7.5 million capital and endowment campaign.

Pesqueira’s awards include being named by Chicago Magazine as one of six Chicagoans of the Year 2006; the 2005 National Organization for Women’s (NOW) Women Who Dared Award; The 2003 Thomas Jefferson Award;  Accento Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” for 2002; and  the Crain’s Chicago Business “40 under 40” for the year 2000.  She was selected as a member to The Chicago Network, a premier organization of diverse, professional women in the Chicago area who have reached the highest echelons of business, the arts, government, the professions and academia.

Her record of civic and community involvement spans two decades.   She serves as Board member of the Community Memorial Foundation, a private independent health conversion foundation; has served as Executive Committee Board member for the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization based in Washington DC and is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. In addition, she has been appointed to City and State level Commissions. Pesqueira was appointed to the Illinois Human Services Commission, the Governor’s Advisory Council on Domestic Violence and appointed to the Mayor of Chicago’s Advisory Council on Domestic Violence.  She is the Chair of the Illinois Partners for Human Services, a network of organizations that advocate for high quality, responsible, and sustainable approaches to providing human service in Illinois. She is the Vice-Chair of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a state-wide coalition of member organizations dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society.

Ms. Pesqueira has a BA from DePaul University.  She is also a graduate of the Harvard University JFK School of Government Executive Program, the Center for Creative Leadership and St. Thomas University MiniMBA program in Nonprofit Management.

Date: April 30th, 2013

Venue: American Islamic College

Time: 6:00pm – 6:30pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture and Q&A

Free parking at AIC parking on 613 Bittersweet Pl

FREE AND OPEN TO PUBLIC

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Join us for an Interfaith Service Project

House Rehab Service Project for The Zakat Foundation

Lutheran School of Theology & American Islamic College

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

9:00 am-1:00 pm or 12:00 noon-4:00 pm

Lunch and conversation with Laila Muhammad

 

 

 

Our work will include cleaning and repairing gutters, replacing siding, painting at a house that was donated to the Zakat Foundation. Project leaders will be present to help us with these tasks. Equipment will also be provided. The use of the building is still under consideration, but we will meet with one of the CCME’s contacts and a Zakat Foundation Board Member, Laila Muhammad to hear more about service and the work of ZF. The address is 3018 E 79th Place (near 79th and Exchange), not far from LSTC, will arrange carpooling for morning and afternoon shifts. If you wish to come the whole day, that is also possible, depending on how many people respond.

ABOUT ZAKAT FOUNDATION OF AMERICAZakat Foundation of America (ZF) is an international charity organization that helps generous and caring people reach out to those in need. Our goal is to address immediate needs and ensure the self-reliance of the poorest people around the world with Zakat and Sadaqa dollars of privileged Muslims and the support of other generous donors.

We believe that those whom God has granted wealth need to cleanse that wealth through charity, and those whom God has tried with loss are accorded a rightful share from the resources of the affluent.

MISSION

ZF fosters charitable giving to alleviate the immediate needs of poor communities and to establish long-term development projects that ensure individual and community growth.

ZF was founded in 2001 upon the Islamic principle illustrated in the Gracious Quran:

“They feed with food–despite their own desire for it– the indigent, and the orphan and the captive (saying): ‘We feed you purely for the sake of God. We desire no reward from you, nor thankfulness.” -

SURAH AL-INSAN 8-9

 

Description:

As the US Senate deliberates on key elements of a comprehensive immigration reform bill that President Obama has promised to sign into law, the fate of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants is now squarely in the domain of public discourse. The journey from the shadows to full inclusion in the fabric of our democracy is a story of immigrant mobilization, engagement and, ultimately, integration as part of the quest to build a more perfect union. The immigrant rights movement, like the civil rights movement, has played a critical role in the struggle for social justice and equal opportunity for all. Drawing on recent experience in Illinois, this lecture will highlight the dynamism of immigrant activism to achieve significant public policy victories at local, state and national levels.

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Speaker & bio:

 Alie Kabba is the founding Executive Director of the United African Organization (UAO), which is a dynamic coalition of African community-based associations that promotes social and economic justice, civic participation and empowerment of African immigrants and refugees in Illinois. Under his leadership, UAO has become a highly visible and respected national advocacy organization with strategic focus on grassroots organizing, leadership development and public policy analysis. He is also President of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which is a statewide coalition of more than 130 organizations dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social and political life of Illinois. He serves as Chair of the Golden Door Coalition, which is committed to the resettlement of refugees with dignity and the support necessary to thrive in the US. In his role as board member of Cable Access Network Television (CAN-TV), Alie Kabba’s efforts to give voice to issues affecting diverse communities in Chicago has propelled him to the forefront of shaping important dialogues and initiatives to make CAN-TV an invaluable public television resource for all constituencies in Chicago. He was recently named among the top 100 black leaders in the US, and he is the recipient of many awards in recognition of his distinguished service and leadership role in multiple civic arenas.

Date: April 16th, 2013

Venue: American Islamic College

Time: 6:00pm – 6:30pm Reception, 6:30pm – 7:30pm Lecture and Q&A

Free parking at AIC parking on 613 Bittersweet Pl

FREE AND OPEN TO PUBLIC

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