Adham Center News

Adham Center's Peripatetic Director Honored By Jordan's King Abdallah

In a solemn ceremony at Basma Palace in Amman, Jordan's King Abdallah and Crown Prince Hamza appointed Adham Center director S. Abdallah Schleifer as a full member of the Aal al-Bayt Foundation for Islamic Thought, Jordan's royal Islamic academy.

The appointment of Schleifer and more than two dozen other intellectuals and religious scholars to the ranks of the academy was the crowning event of a three-day General Conference hosted by Aal al-Bayt Foundation last August in which more than one hundred Muslim scholars and intellectuals gathered to discuss "The Future of Islam in the 15th Century of Hijra." Schleifer's paper "Information Technology, Mass Media, and the Impact of Globalization upon the Muslim World" was the first paper to be presented at the conference and was translated into Arabic as the lead paper of the conference proceedings. Schleifer was also interviewed on this occasion by Jordan TV correspondent (and Adham Center alumni) Dana Zureikat.

Later the same month, Schleifer participated in the 15th Annual Conference of The Eckhart Society, at Plater College, Oxford where he introduced the keynote speaker Dr. Reza Shah-Kazemi. The theme of this year's conference was The Image In The Work Of Meister Eckhart.

In September, Schleifer was in Mainz, Germany attending the First World Congress for Middle East Studies, where he presented a paper "Restoring the Severed Link: A Return to the Scribal Source of High Islamic Culture" and participated as discussant in the panel chaired by Dr. Hussein Amin, Adham Center Senior Associate, on "Global Fusion: Broadcast Media in the Middle East."

Schleifer and Amin also were among the nineteen scholars and professional broadcasters who gathered at Cambridge University's Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies in early November for a conference on "Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalization: Furthering Integration or Enhancing Fragmentation in the Arab World?" Schleifer's paper, "Mapping Arab Satellite Broadcasting" was, again, the conference's introductory paper. At the end of the conference Schleifer traveled to London where he interviewed Jihad Khazen, editor in chief of the new Al-Hayat-LBC joint newsroom, for Transnational Broadcasting Studies and from London traveled to Dubai where he conducted extensive interviews at the new MBC headquarters as well as with a group of executives for the new satellite channel Majd 2.

In December, the Adham Center director was one of a half dozen AUC scholars who traveled to Washington DC to participate in the annual Middle East Studies Association convention. Schleifer went in his capacity as Academic Liaison Officer for the Thesaurus Islamicus Project, headquartered at the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies in Cambridge. He also met with the leadership of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, a Washington-based think tank that invited the Adham Center director to present a paper at their annual conference this coming April.

In Cairo, between trips, Schleifer authored the catalogue essay for the show " Berber!" at the Sony Gallery and Rare Books Library and was extensively interviewed for broadcast documentaries on the Roots of 9/11 by New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman (for broadcast on HBO), BBC World Radio, and the American Classic Movie Channel, and appeared on a number of Egypt TV English-language talk shows.

The Editors