KNOXVILLE—Azizah al-Hibri, a professor at the T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond, Virginia, an expert on women’s rights and Islam, will speak at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on September 21 and 22.
The visit is sponsored by the College of Law, with support from the Office of Research, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Departments of Religious Studies, History, Modern Foreign Languages, and Literature, and the School of Music.
At 7:00 p.m., on September 21, al-Hibri will present a lecture, “Arabic Civilization and the Founding Fathers: A Fresh Examination,” in support of a federally funded initiative to introduce Arabic language and Arab culture across the curriculum at UT. The event, to be held in Room 132 of the College of Law, is free and open to the public.
At noon on September 22, the College of Law’s Committee on Community will host al-Hibri for a talk, “Islam, Liberty, and the Rule of Law.” That event, also held in Room 132 of the College of Law, is open to faculty, staff, and students.
In 1992, al-Hibri became the first Muslim woman law professor in the United States. Since then, she has written extensively on women’s issues, democracy, and human rights from an Islamic perspective. She founded Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights in 1993, to support the rights of Muslim women world wide through educational programs, jurisprudential scholarship, and a network of Muslim jurists and leaders. Karamah’s original research and innovative programming provides Muslim women with the essential tools and knowledge to promote reform in their own communities.
A Fulbright Scholar and Fellow at the National Humanities Center, al-Hibri was also a consultant to the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in Qatar and advised them on the development of Qatar’s personal status code.
At the request of the US State Department, al-Hibri has shared her perspective at speaking engagements throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. President Barack Obama appointed her to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in June 2011.
More information on al-Hibri is available at http://law.richmond.edu/people/faculty/aalhibri/.
For more information on these upcoming talks, please contact Professor Rob Blitt at rblitt@utk.edu.
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C O N T A C T :
Tanya G. Brown (865-974-6788, tgbrown@utk.edu)