The McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies and the Islamic Studies Library were established in 1952 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and since 1983 both have been housed in Morrice Hall on McGill's campus in downtown Montreal, Quebec. McGill's institute is the first institute of Islamic studies in North America [1] and hosts 14 full-time professors, 5 visiting positions and 5 professors emeritus. [2]
The Islamic Studies Library began with only 250 books but grew rapidly. Today, the library holds more than 110,000 volumes, half of them in Islamic languages, and is counted among the major North American collections in Islamic Studies. [1]
The Institute of Islamic Studies has had numerous famous faculty members, including, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Toshihiko Izutsu, Isma'il Raji al-Faruqi, Niyazi Berkes, Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker, Fazlur Rahman Malik, Issa J. Boullata, Sajida Alvi, and Wael Hallaq.
Urdu Language and Culture: established in April 1987 and funded by the Government of Pakistan, Department of Multiculturalism, Government of Canada, and McGill University. [3]
| Name of Professor [4] | Emeritus Start Date | Area of Specialty |
|---|---|---|
| Charles J. Adams | 1-Jan-1993 | Religion |
| Sajida Alvi | 1-Jun-2010 | History, Religions and Languages of South Asia |
| Issa J. Boullata | 1-Sep-2009 | Arabic Language & Literature, Qur'anic Studies |
| Hermann Landolt | 1-Jan-2000 | Islamic Thought |
| Donald P. Little | 1-Jan-2000 | Medieval Islamic History, especially Mamluk |
Given the high number of influential scholars of the study of Islam, professors of the Institute have been honoured with numerous festschrifts. These include:
Ijtihad is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with taqlid. According to classical Sunni theory, ijtihad requires expertise in the Arabic language, theology, revealed texts, and principles of jurisprudence, and is not employed where authentic and authoritative texts are considered unambiguous with regard to the question, or where there is an existing scholarly consensus (ijma). Ijtihad is considered to be a religious duty for those qualified to perform it. An Islamic scholar who is qualified to perform ijtihad is called as a "mujtahid".
Heiko Augustinus Oberman (1930–2001) was a Dutch historian and theologian who specialized in the study of the Reformation.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith was a Canadian Islamicist, comparative religion scholar, and Presbyterian minister. He was the founder of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Quebec and later the director of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions. The Harvard University Gazette said he was one of the field's most influential figures of the past century. In his 1962 work The Meaning and End of Religion he notably questioned the modern sectarian concept of religion.
Sajida S. Alvi is an academic of Pakistani origin in Canada. She is a historian of Islam in South Asia and was the inaugural appointment to the chair in Urdu Language and Culture at the Institute of Islamic Studies from September 1987 until her retirement in June 2010.
Wael B. Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he has been teaching ethics, law, and political thought since 2009. He is considered a leading scholar in the field of Islamic legal studies, and has been described as one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law.
Taha Abderrahmane, is a Moroccan philosopher, and one of the leading philosophers and thinkers in the Arab and Islamic worlds. His work centers on logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of morality and contractarian ethics. He believes in multiple modernities and seeks to establish an ethical and humanitarian modernity based on the values and principles of Islam and the Arab tradition.
Edward Earle Ellis was an American biblical scholar. Ellis served as Research Professor of Theology Emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, joining the institution in 1985.
Roger Mervyn Savory was a British-born Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto who was an Iranologist and specialist on the Safavids. His numerous writings on Safavid political, military history, administration, bureaucracy, and diplomacy-translated into several languages have had a great impact in understanding this period.
Issa J. Boullata was a Palestinian scholar, writer, and translator of Arabic literature.
Niyazi Berkes was a Turkish Cypriot sociologist.
Dimitri Gutas is an American Arabist and Hellenist specialized in medieval Islamic philosophy, who serves as professor emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University.
The holdings of the Islamic Studies Library, a branch of the McGill University Library, stand together with those of the Robarts Library of the University of Toronto as the premier library resources in Canada for research on the Islamic world and among the most important collections in North America.
Kamal Abu-Deeb in Arabic is Chair of Arabic at the University of London. He was a Leverhulme Trust Fellow.
David Edward Aune is an American New Testament scholar. He is the emeritus Walter Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Notre Dame.
Petra Marieke Sijpesteijn is professor of Arabic at Leiden University. She was the founding president of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology.
Bāhila was an Arab tribe based in Najd. Part of the tribe was settled and part of it was semi-nomadic. The Bahila was first mentioned during the early years of Islam, in the mid-7th century. During that time, many Bahila tribesmen migrated to Syria and Basra. Many of those who went to Syria later moved to Khurasan as part of the Umayyad garrison there. As a sub-tribe of Qays, they fought alongside the Qaysi coalition against the Yamani tribes during the Umayyad era. The scholar al-Asma'i and the general Qutayba ibn Muslim both belonged to the tribe. The Bahila were last mentioned in the 10th century.
Charles Joseph Adams was an American academic and professor of religion. He was Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies at McGill University and for nearly 20 years the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies there.
Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi was an Indian Islamic scholar and an Urdu-language author who co-founded the Nadwatul Musannifeen. He served as the dean of the Faculty of Theology in Aligarh Muslim University.
Fikret Berkes is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute. Berkes studies community-based natural resources management in societies around the world.
Everett K. Rowson is an American scholar and Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He is known for his works on the intellectual and social history of the medieval Islamic world. A festschrift in his honor edited by Joseph E. Lowry and Shawkat M. Toorawa was published by Brill Publishers in 2017.
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