"Islamic Pacifism—Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era"

A lecture by Arsalan T. Iftikhar, international human rights lawyer and media commentator

Monday, November 14, 2011
6:30 p.m.
Salomon 101, Main Green. Free and open to the public.

A Catalyzing Conversations/BLiterate Initative of Brown's
Office of Institutional Diversity and the Office of the Chaplains
and Religious Life

With the tragic rise of extremism and global racism around the world today, the idea of "Islamic Pacifism" is a humanitarian ethical platform rooted within the general concepts of nonviolence and basic Muslim ethical teachings of mercy and compassion towards all of humanity. On Monday, November 14, Arsalan T. Iftikhar will explore the roots of these teachings and how it is influencing the Muslim community in a post-Osama era.

Here is what people are saying about Iftikhar's 2011 book of the same title as the lecture and read more about his work to date below:

“Arsalan Iftikhar...proposes...a new global movement based on peaceful coexistence that is firmly rooted within the framework of modern Islam.”
Deepak Chopra, New York Times Bestselling Author

“His important book is a clarion call for religious tolerance, one of the principles on which this nation was founded.”
Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist

This event is a collaboration of the Catalyzing Conversations Project, Office of Institutional Diversity; BLiterate:Religion, Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life; Watson Institute for International Studies; Middle East Studies; Department of Religious Studies; Kaleidoscope Fund; Division of Campus Life and Student Services; Alumni Relations; Brown Muslim Students’ Association; Brown Muslim Chaplaincy; C. V. Starr Lectureship Fund; Swearer Center for Public Service; Cogut Center, Individual Faculty Lecture Fund; Dean of the Faculty; and the Brown Tougaloo Partnership.

More about Arsalan T. Iftikhar
Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, global media commentator, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and global managing editor of The Crescent Post. Additionally, he is a regular weekly legal affairs/political commentator for the National Public Radio (NPR) show Tell Me More with Michel Martin and a contributing writer for CNN.com and Esquire Magazine (Middle East edition).

Iftikhar’s "on-the-record" media interviews, commentaries and analyses have regularly appeared in virtually every major media outlet in the world including: CNN, BBC World News, The TODAY Show, National Public Radio (NPR), FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Associated Press, C-SPAN, Voice of America (VOA), Agence France-Presse (AFP), USA TODAY, NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, ABC World News Tonight, Los Angeles Times, CBS News Up to the Minute, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, TIME, The Economist, and Newsweek magazines (among dozens others worldwide).

In May 2011, Iftikhar was named one of the top 12 Muslim Twitter accounts by The Huffington Post and his published columns and written articles have appeared in major publications around the world including: CNN.com, USA TODAY, Esquire Magazine (Middle East edition), Houston Chronicle, Detroit Free Press, The Providence Journal, San Diego Union-Tribune, Charlotte Observer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Miami Herald, The Jakarta Post, and many more publications around the world.

In March 2008, Iftikhar was one of four international debaters selected to participate on The Doha Debates on BBC World News Television. The Doha Debates are broadcast to over 300 million people worldwide on BBC World Service Television and its stage has been shared with the likes of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United States President Bill Clinton. Furthermore, as a September 2008 Christian Science Monitor 9/11 anniversary profile of Iftikhar would report about the final voting outcome of the March 2008 Doha Debates on BBC World News Television: Iftikhar] and his partner won the debate with a final television audience vote of 70.4% to 29.6%.

In addition to The Doha Debates, some of Iftikhar’s other international speaking venues have included: Harvard University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, University of Michigan School of Law, The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, Cornell University, Washington University School of Law, The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), The Newseum, The Rockefeller Foundation, and The British Museum in London.

Iftikhar was also a contributing author to Keeping Out the Other (Columbia University Press) and Taking Back Islam (Rodale Press); winner of the 2003 Wilbur Communications Award for Religion Book of the Year. In August 2011, he was also invited to join The British Council’s ‘Our Shared Future’ Opinion Leaders Network—a transatlantic network of opinion leaders and scholars whose work and ideas contribute constructively to the public conversation on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims around the world. In 2006, the French Ambassador to the United States personally named Iftikhar to the Personnalites d’Avenir (Personalities of the Future) World Leader Program in Paris sponsored by the French Foreign Ministry.

Iftikhar graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999 and received his law doctorate from Washington University School of Law in 2003. A native of Chicago, he specializes in international human rights law and is licensed to practice law in Washington DC.