Ibrahim Abu Rabbi Annual Memorial Lectures
Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World
ICMES held its first Annual Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’ Commemorative Lecture on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at the International Law Institute, 1055 Thomas Jefferson St. NW, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Carl W. Ernst, the W. R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, and Co-Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Ernst is the author of several books on Islam, including The Shambhala Guide to Sufism and Following Muhammad (which has been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, German, and Korean.)
Two Years into the Arab Spring: Islam, Elections, and Democratic Transformation
On April 4, 2013 ICMES and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) hosted a jointly sponsored program, “Two Years into the Arab Spring: Islam, Elections, & Democratic Transformation,” on at IFES headquarters in Washington, D.C. Zeinab Abdelkarim of IFES introduced the panel with a short discussion of the process and technicalities involved in elections. ICMES Secretary Issam M. Saliba, Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im (pictured above), the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University, and Professor Daniel Brumberg, Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, followed as speakers and discussed elections and constitution writing within the context of Islam, Islamic law and Islamic societies. ICMES President Norton Mezvinsky served as moderator.