Michael B. Wolfe (born 3 April 1945) [1] is an American poet, author, and the President and Co-Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation. A secular American born in Cincinnati, Ohio to a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Wolfe converted to Islam at 40 [2] and has been a frequent lecturer on Islamic issues at universities across the United States including Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, SUNY Buffalo, and Princeton. He holds a degree in Classics from Wesleyan University. [1]
Wolfe taught writing and English at Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover academies, the California State Summer School for the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
For fifteen years, Wolfe was sole publisher of Tombouctou Books, a small press enterprise located in Bolinas, California, that issued small editions of poetry and avant garde prose, including The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, two books of fiction by the Moroccan storyteller Mohammed Mrabet; American fiction by Douglas Woolf, Dale Herd, Lucia Berlin, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Steve Emerson, and Paul Bowles's final collection of short stories, Unwelcome Words: Seven Stories.; [3] The Japan and India Journals by Joanne Kyger; and volumes of poetry by Tom Clark, Lewis MacAdams, Leslie Scalapino, and Duncan McNaughton.
Wolfe was a participant at Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 1960 as a 16-year-old. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, he studied poetry with Richard Wilbur, 1964–68, and was in a writing circle with Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop. He returned to Bread Loaf for a second summer in 1966. Wolfe was a MacDowell Colony resident in poetry in 1968. He received an Amy Lowell Traveling Poets Scholarship in 1970, which was renewed for two further years. During this time he traveled and wrote in North and West Africa. His first books of poetry How Love Gets Around and World Your Own, a book of fiction Invisible Weapons, and a travel journal In Morocco derive from this period. In the 1980s, he returned to North Africa several more times. As a Muslim [4] he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1990 and wrote extensively about it.
Wolfe's first works on Islam were a pair of books from Grove Press on the pilgrimage to Mecca: The Hadj (1993; 2015), [5] a first-person travel account, and One Thousand Roads to Mecca (1997; updated & expanded, 2015), an anthology of 10 centuries of travelers writing about the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Shortly after 11 September 2001, he edited a collection of essays by American Muslims and others called Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faith. [6] Taking Back Islam won the 2003 annual Wilbur Award for "Best Book of the year on a Religious Theme". [7] In 2010, Wolfe was included in "The 500 Most Influential Muslims," (Third Edition).
In 2010, Blue Press Books published a chapbook of poems by Wolfe entitled Paradise: Reading Notes. In 2012, Blue Press published a second chapbook, entitled "Greek to Me." [8] In 2014, Blue Press issued a third chapbook, "Tarantella." In 2014, he also assembled a fourth, longer volume of poetry, entitled Digging Up Russia: Selected Poems, 1968-2010. Between 2008 and 2012, Wolfe translated a collection of 127 epitaphs from the Greek Anthology, entitled Cut These Words into My Stone: Selected Ancient Greek Epitaphs. This collection with a set of brief contextualizing essays was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2013, with an Introduction by Professor Richard P. Martin, Chair of the Stanford University Classics Department. The book was well received in classical journals and among poets. It was short-listed for PEN's Best Book of Poetry in Translation.
In 2014 Wolfe completed a brief, first-person novel, entitled "The Motorbike," set in Cincinnati in 1958. In 2017, he began researching and writing a nonfiction book, "My Mother's People," about his colonial Yankee ancestry and modern American immigration.
For about four years, Wolfe wrote an occasional column for Beliefnet, a Web journal of the world's religions. [9]
In April 1997, Wolfe hosted a televised account of the Hajj, broadcast from Mecca for Ted Koppel's Nightline on ABC. [10] The program was nominated for Peabody, Emmy, George Polk, and National Press Club Awards. It won the annual Media Award from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. [11] In February 2003, Wolfe worked with CNN International television news reporter Zain Verjee to produce a new half-hour documentary on the Hajj. [12] Wolfe has been featured on hundreds of regional and national radio talk shows.
In 1999, Wolfe helped found an educational media foundation focused on promoting peace through the media, Unity Productions Foundation (UPF). In 2002, UPF produced its first full-length film, called Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet , a two-hour television documentary on the life and times of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. The film, which Wolfe co-created and co-produced, received a national broadcast on PBS [13] and subsequent international broadcasts on National Geographic International. [14] It was awarded a Cine Special Jury Award for Best Professional Documentary [15] in its category of People and Places.
Wolfe co-produced two new films released in 2007. The first was entitled Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain . It was aired nationally on PBS on Aug. 22, 2007. Prince Among Slaves was also aired on PBS that year. It is the true story of an African prince enslaved in antebellum Mississippi struggling to regain his freedom. [16]
UPF has since released six more contemporary documentaries. On a Wing and A Prayer (2008) and Talking through Walls (2009) both appeared on PBS. The third film, Allah Made Me Funny (2008), was released in theaters. In 2009, UPF's seventh film appeared on PBS. Based on a worldwide Gallup Poll of the Muslim world, it is called Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World , narrated by Susan Sarandon (2012) and Enemy of the Reich, narrated by Helen Mirren (2014), have followed. "The Sultan & the Saint," the story of St. Francis of Assisi and his journey to the Crusades, appeared on PBS at Christmastime, 2017. Narrated by Jeremy Irons, it was nominated for UPF's first Emmy Award. In 2018, the UPF Team began pre-production on its first animated feature film, "Lamya's Poem." All UPF films have websites and are additionally available through UPF's educational outreach project, called 20,000 Dialogues. [17]
Wolfe continues to produce long and short-form documentaries for PBS and other broadcasters in the US and abroad with Unity Productions Foundation. [18] His co-production partner on all these films is Alex Kronemer. [19]
Wolfe's awards include: [20]
The Five Pillars of Islam are fundamental practices in Islam, considered to be obligatory acts of worship for all Muslims. They are summarized in the hadith of Gabriel. The Sunni and Shia agree on the basic details of the performance and practice of these acts, but the Shia do not refer to them by the same name. They are: Muslim creed, prayer, charity to the poor, fasting in the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able.
Muhammad was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is believed to be the Seal of the Prophets within Islam, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis for Islamic religious belief.
Mecca is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and the holiest city in Islam. It is 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its last recorded population was 1,578,722 in 2015. Its estimated metropolitan population in 2020 is 2.042 million, making it the third-most populated city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh and Jeddah. Pilgrims more than triple this number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage, observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah.
A shrine is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated. A shrine at which votive offerings are made is called an altar.
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore was a U.S. poet, essayist and librettist. In 1970 he converted to the Sufi tradition of Islam and changed his name to Abdal-Hayy. He then created works such as Ramadan Sonnets (1996) and The Blind Beekeeper (2002), most works being self-published. In early adulthood Moore traveled widely, living in Morocco, Spain, Algeria, and Nigeria as well as in Santa Barbara in the United States.
The Treaty of al-Hudaybiya was an event that took place during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was a pivotal treaty between Muhammad, representing the state of Medina, and the tribe of the Quraysh in Mecca in January 628. The treaty helped to decrease tension between the two cities, affirmed peace for a period of 10 years, and authorised Muhammad's followers to return the following year in a peaceful pilgrimage, which was later known as the First Pilgrimage.
The Umrah is an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of the year, in contrast to the Ḥajj, which has specific dates according to the Islamic lunar calendar.
The depiction of Islamic prophet Muhammad in film is a controversial topic both within and outside of Islam. Although the Quran does not explicitly forbid images of Muhammad, there are a few hadith which have explicitly prohibited Muslims from creating visual depictions of figures. Because the different branches of Islam use different Hadith collections, there is a split on this issue between the two major denominations of Islam, Sunni and Shia Islam.
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet is a PBS documentary film about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad based on historical records and on the stories of living American Muslims who call Muhammad the Messenger of God. It was produced in 2002 by Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation and Kikim Media.
Alexander Kronemer is a writer, lecturer, and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on religious diversity, Islam, and cross-cultural understanding. He is the co-founder and executive producer of Unity Productions Foundation. Alex Kronemer is the co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF), its Executive Director, and Executive Producer for all UPF Films. He is an internationally known speaker and has published numerous articles newspapers and journals in the US and abroad, including The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post and in syndication in international publications as widespread as the UK, Indonesia, Egypt, and Pakistan. He frequently presents at 20,000 Dialogue events, and has appeared as a CNN commentator on several occasions. Mr. Kronemer has won numerous awards for his work in promoting peace and interfaith understanding. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he previously served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Human Rights and was one of the founding staff members who helped establish the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Muḥammad bin ʿAbd Allāh bin ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib bin Hāshim is believed to be the seal of the messengers and prophets of God in all of the main branches of Islam. Muslims believe that the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, was revealed to Muhammad by God, and that Muhammad was sent to restore Islam, which they believe did not originate with Muhammad but is the true unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. The religious, social, and political tenets that Muhammad established with the Quran became the foundation of Islam and the Muslim world.
The First Pilgrimage or Umrah of Dhu'l-Qada was the first pilgrimage that the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Muslims made after the Migration to Medina. It took place on the morning of the fourth day of Dhu al-Qi'dah 7 AH, after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah 6 AH. The entire event was three days long.
Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
The holiest sites in Islam are predominantly located in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant. While the significance of most places typically varies depending on the Islamic sect, there is a consensus across all mainstream branches of the religion that affirms three cities as having the highest degree of holiness, in descending order: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Mecca's Al-Masjid al-Haram, Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, and Al-Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem are all revered by Muslims as sites of great importance.
Khalid Yahya Blankinship is an American historian who specialises in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies.
The destruction of heritage sites associated with early Islam is an ongoing phenomenon that has occurred mainly in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, particularly around the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina. The demolition has focused on mosques, burial sites, homes and historical locations associated with the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his companions, and many of the founding personalities of early Islamic history by the Saudi government. In Saudi Arabia, many of the demolitions have officially been part of the continued expansion of the Masjid al-Haram at Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina and their auxiliary service facilities in order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Muslims performing the pilgrimage (hajj).
Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home.
Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta is an IMAX dramatised documentary film charting the first real-life journey made by the Islamic scholar Ibn Battuta from his native Morocco to Mecca for the Hajj, in 1325.
The Khalili Collection of the Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage is a private collection of around 5,000 items relating to the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca which is a religious duty in Islam. It is one of eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser Khalili; each collection is considered among the most important in its field. The collection's 300 textiles include embroidered curtains from the Kaaba, the Station of Abraham, the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad and other holy sites, as well as textiles that would have formed part of pilgrimage caravans from Egypt or Syria. It also has illuminated manuscripts depicting the practice and folklore of the Hajj as well as photographs, art pieces, and commemorative objects relating to the Hajj and the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
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