Topic Overview

This series will examine the seerah of Rasul-Allah (pbuh) within its context as well as its implications on our times and life. Through a dynamic examination of the Prophet’s life amongst the Sahaba, their society, socio-political environment, circumstances, successes, failures and mistakes, we can explicate the guidance that Allah tells us in the Qur’an that we can obtain by examining the lives of people and nations that lived before us. Thus, we try to emulate their successes by approximating their societal experience to our reality and also avoid repeating their mistakes.

Lecture Schedule

1. March 19, 2006 - Introduction
   
   
2. April 23, 2006 - In an attempt to have a better understanding of Islam, it is crucial to understand the life of the Prophet (PBUH), the Messenger, as well as the message. However, no message can be understood properly if it is examined out of its context. Accordingly, our first session after the introduction will examine the Social, Political, Economic, Religious, Psychological, Geographic, Historical realities, and Geo-political relations in which the Prophet (PBUH) emerged. We will consider how those contextual factors affected his family, his life and his status and shaped the perception of his Heavenly-revealed Message. This will enable us to fully understand why he was the Seal of Messengers and not that of History. Such understanding makes it possible for Islam to be relevantly applicable to all ages, all people, all places and all times.
   
   
3. January 20, 2008 - Rihla with Hamza Yusuf Brother Omer Bajwa presently the Interim Muslim Chaplain at Cornell University will give a presentation about a three week journey through Saudi Arabia that he under took with the well known American-Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf. The presentation pays special attention to Mecca and Medina from the perspective of the life of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). During their trip they were granted exclusive access to numerous historical sites that are not normally accessible to the general public.
   
   Brother Omer received his M.A. in Near Eastern Studies, with a specialization in Islamic Studies, from Cornell University's Department of Near Eastern Studies. He also holds an M.S. in Communications and a B.A. in English from Cornell, and is at present completing his pastoral studies in Hartford Seminary's Islamic Chaplaincy Program.

Biodata of the Speaker:

Abdel-Rahman Mohamed, Ph.D.
Dr. Mohamed, the current President of the Islamic Council of New England, is the CEO of the Boston-based AIM International, Inc. a strategic cooperative alliance group specializing in the transfer of innovative technology to developing countries.

Dr. Mohamed’s specialization in Interdisciplinary Cognitive and Development Communication, the science mediating human knowledge, made him the first “Third World” Professor of Mass Communication and Public Relations in the Boston University’s College of Communication. Simultaneously, he held Associate Faculty positions in the Graduate School, Center for International Relations, African Studies Center and the African-American Studies Center. He was naturalized as a US citizen on the basis of Permanent Residency in the Immigration category of "Outstanding Professor."

Dr. Mohamed earned his Interdisciplinary Doctoral degree from the BU’s University Professors Program and a Master of Science at Boston University’s School of Public Communication in Publishing, Advertising and Marketing Management. At the University of Khartoum, he studied history, philosophy, political science, languages, and law.

His scholarship in Islamic Studies started at the age of four in the Khalwa [Religious Madrasah] of the famous Late Sheikh Khojali in Khartoum North, where he studied Qura~an, Hadeeth and Arabic language. He studied Fiqh, Tafseer and Sierah under the guidance of his late father Sheikh Haj Ibrahim Mohamed Abdel-Rahman Al-Nu^amaan (Al-Barbary). During his university years in Khartoum, he started his pioneering integrative studies of Islamic Intellectual History. Applying his Integrative Multi-Contexts Processual Analysis, he has developed a freshly unique Sunni approach to Islamic Texts and History.