Muslim Space invites you to participate in a new, 4-part Ramadan halaqa titled Staying True to God. This program will be led by Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani and Dr. Hina Azam.
Compassion and Mercy are themes, descriptions, and reminders running throughout the Quran. This series is focused on deepening our understanding of God’s compassion and implementing it in our lives - especially to Ramadan, fasting, making space for alternative ways of being Muslim and loving God.
In determining how to conduct oneself, Muslims often focus on the specific rules of the shari’a. However, just as important in the Qur’an are the general rules of virtuous conduct, which we may call “ethics.”
The 4 topics that will be addressed are as follows:
Staying True to God: Compassionate Change in Islam - (Sunday, March 17th)
Closer Than Our Jugular Vein: Attaining Closeness to God - (Sunday, March 24th)
Ethical Principles of the Qur’an: The benefit of doing good (ihsan) - (Saturday, March 30th)
Ethical Principles of the Qur’an: Establishing balance/justice (‘adāla) and equity (qisṭ)- (Saturday, April 6th)
We are fortunate to have Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani present the first two weeks and Dr. Hina Azam present the third and fourth weeks. The event will be interactive and following the presentation there will be a Q&A session.
About the presenters
Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani has been teaching at Mercer University since fall 2018 and specializes in Islam, with a focus on gender and sexuality. She earned her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and her bachelor’s at Emory University. In AY 2017-2018, she was the Dissertation Diversity Fellow at Ithaca College in Women’s and Gender Studies, where she taught courses on Islamic Feminism and Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East. Prior to that, she taught at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, while working on her dissertation.
Dr. Haqqani’s academic and research interests include religious authority, religion and feminism, and change and tradition. Her dissertation, titled “Islamic Tradition, Change, and Feminism: The Gendered Non-Negotiable,” explored these themes, focusing on Muslims in America and their attitudes toward gender and social change. Currently, she is working on a book on Muslim women’s marriage to non-Muslims, surveying historical and contemporary discourses on the issue.
She is also a podcast host with the New Books Network, for the New Books in Islamic Studies channel, interviewing authors of recent books in Islamic studies.
Dr. Hina Azam teaches courses in Islamic Studies such as Islamic theology, Islamic law, the Qur'an, Qur'an interpretation, and Islamic feminism, as well as a course on comparative religions of the Middle East. Her research focuses on women/gender/sexuality in Islam, ethics, and pedagogy. She supervises or serves as reader for undergraduate and graduate theses and dissertations across the University. She is currently the Graduate Advisor for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and also serves on the Graduate Assembly, the Curriculum and Design Committee for the College of Liberal Arts, and the Steering Committee for the Jefferson Center for Core Texts and Ideas. Dr. Azam is a faculty affiliate/GSC member with the Department of Religious Studies and the Center for Women and Gender Studies. She is a Provost Teaching Fellow, currently working on a project entitled "Teaching the University." Her book, Sexual Violation in Islamic Law, won the American Historical Association's 2016 James Henry Breasted award for pre-modern history. In 2019, the Alcalde named Dr. Azam as one of the TexasTen, in recognition of her outstanding teaching. Dr. Azam oversees the Islamic Studies Reading Group, the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (ISMES) Colloquium, and the undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Islamic Studies housed in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies.