IIIT Al Faruqi Memorial Lecture and Reception — 2026 Annual Meeting Of The American Academy Of Religion (Aar)

Sunday, November 22, 2026 | 7—9 P.M. Ct

Colorado Convention Center | Room Mile High BC | Denver, CO

 

Professor Ismail Raji al Faruqi (1921-1986) was a co-founder of International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). Born in Jaffa, Palestine, he completed his undergraduate education from the American University in Beirut. He eventually relocated to the United States where he pursued graduate studies in philosophy. Prof al Faruqi studied Islam at al Azhar University, Cairo, from 1954 to 1958. In 1968, he joined Temple University’s newly established Department of Religion and founded the Islamic Studies program there. In addition, in 1973, Prof al Faruqi initiated the Islam section at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). He was also the President of the American Islamic College in Chicago.

His own intellectual and faith journey is apparent from his famous quote: “Until a few months ago, I was a Palestinian, an Arab, and a Muslim. Now I am a Muslim who happens to be an Arab from Palestine.”

Prof al Faruqi was an exceptional scholar of Islam and comparative religions who was trained at Indiana University, Harvard University, and McGill University. He was among the pioneers who represented Islam in interreligious dialogue when this movement was just beginning. Indeed, he was a scholar who engaged with not only the history of religion but also the challenges religion, especially Islam, faced in contemporary times. Prof al Faruqi authored, with his wife Dr Lamya al Faruqi – a distinguished scholar of Islamic art – the seminal work titled The Cultural Atlas of Islam. His many publications include Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of its Dominant Ideas (McGill University Press, 1967) and Al Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life (IIIT, 1982).

He was – and still is seen as – a brilliant intellectual, whose legacy of reform and scholastic efforts still reverberate today and will continue to do so. May God have mercy on him. Ameen.

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is Distinguished Professor and the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and was a Wilson Center Global Fellow in Washington, DC. He has an MA and Dip Ed from Cambridge University and PhD from SOAS, London University. He was Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. Ahmed’s career has included distinguished posts in both academia and public service.  Highlights include Visiting Professor, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and the Iqbal Fellow and Fellow of Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge (Iqbal Chair of Pakistan Studies). Ahmed’s posts in the Civil Service of Pakistan, included Commissioner in Baluchistan and Political Agent in the Tribal Areas including that of South Waziristan Agency. Ahmed is cited in The Muslim 500 among the top fifty Muslims. The BBC called him, “The world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam,” Sheikh Hamza Yusuf described him as a “Muslim treasure himself.”