Do Muslims regard Jesus of Nazareth as an historical or spiritual figure? What are the implications of those views on contemporary relations between Muslims and Christians?
Find out Friday, Nov. 29 at 7:30 PM when Dr. Oussama Arabi speaks on “The Muslim Jesus: An Islamic View of Christ.” The lecture will be held on the Xavier University campus in the Norman C. Francis science building auditorium, Room 105. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Dr. Arabi is a visiting professor from the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon and an acknowledged expert on Islam. He currently teaches a course at Xavier on contemporary Islam. His visit is made possible through the American University of Beirut’s “Understanding Contemporary Islam Program” and the Washington D.C.-based Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
The goal of the program is to increase the understanding between Americans and people from Islamic countries by sending eminent scholars from the Muslim world to U.S. universities and colleges that lack extensive academic programs on Islam and Muslim society but wish to expand such offerings.
“In the Islamic faith all prophets are Muslim, where Muslim means submitting to God, and Jesus is one such prophet,” said Arabi. “His divine mission is described in many stories...many Muslims understand Jesus' witness, a call to abandon the world and build on something much higher.” Arabi will also talk about the Muslim Ascetic tradition, which made Jesus of Nazareth their undisputed patron.
The Islamic scholar has received many honors during his career. He received the Seniora Award for Arabic Studies in 2004, served as director of the Mediterranean Judiciaries Panel in Florence, assisted as chair for the Hadith Studies Panel at the Middle East Studies Association of North America in 1996 and was a Fulbright scholar in 1995 at UCLA.
Arabi, who has taught since 1985 in the Cultural Studies Program at AUB, received his doctorate from Sorbonne University, Paris. His present research focuses on aspects of classical Islamic jurisprudence. He has published a number of books and articles, including: Studies in Modern Islamic Law and Jurisprudence (2001) and Early Muslim Legal Philosophy (1999).
Dr. Arabi’s visit is also funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as well as the American University of Beirut.
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