Posts tagged : "Interfaith dialoge"

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The debate on “Islamic fundamentalism” has turned immensely heated and intense in the West, especially as the terrorist group ISIS continues its relentless campaign of mass killing and executing non-Muslims and threatens to take the fight to the European capitals. ISIS has played a central role in creating skepticism towards Islam in the West that the religion preaches violence. It was about 4 months ago that a deadly shooting spree at the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris claimed 12 lives, saddened millions of French people over the dramatic loss and also incited a new wave of Islamophobic attacks across Europe. Several mosques were set on fire...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The horrific actions being committed under the banner of religion, as manifested in the atrocities of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have made people across the world, especially youths, doubtful about the peaceful nature of divine religions and raised many questions on the relationship between Islam and terror, and the growth of what some have come to call Islamic fundamentalism. There are hardline commentators and pundits who capitalize on the mass killings and executions of civilians by the ISIS to propagate this belief that Islam is a religion of violence that preaches the killing of innocent people, and that Islam and peace are irreconcilable. They ignore the calls by...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The terrorist attacks in France earlier this month, which resulted in the death of 17 people, has prompted a heated debate over free speech and religious intolerance. Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine that was targeted in Paris on January 7, has a long history of publishing controversial cartoons, especially those of Prophet Muhammad. The attack on the magazine’s office attracted global sympathy. World leaders from over 40 countries gathered in Paris and marched to show solidarity and express their strong support for freedom of speech. Leaders of Muslim-majority countries condemned the terrorist attacks and made it clear that such acts have no place in Islam. However, the circumstances...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The First International Conference on World Against Violence and Extremism (held on December 9-10, 2014) was an opportunity for hundreds of public figures, including politicians, diplomats, intellectuals, academicians, religious leaders and thinkers of more than 40 world countries to come to Tehran and discuss one of the most pressing and sensitive issue of the 21st century with each other: terrorism and extremism. The debate on violence and extremism has become more heated and controversial with the rise of the terrorist cult ISIS, which has established a self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, and harbors inauspicious plans for dominating larger parts of the Middle East and even...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Muhammad Abdul Latif is the imam of Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California, and an instructor at ILM Tree, a home-schooling cooperative in Lafayette, California. He also teaches at Zaytuna College's annual Summer Arabic Intensive program in Berkeley, California. Abdul Latif converted to Islam in 1995 in Atlanta, Georgia, when he was 20 years old. He subsequently traveled throughout the Muslim world and, in 2002, relocated with his family to the San Francisco Bay Area to take advantage of the resources of knowledge and the community that had formed around Zaytuna Institute. Mr. Abdul Latif joined me in an interview to discuss the cancelled plan of Dove World Outreach Center to burn copies of the Holy...

Kourosh Ziabari - Prof. John E. Hare is the Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Yale University’s Divinity School. A British classicist, philosopher and ethicist, he is the author of several well-known and best-selling books in religion and morality including “God and Morality: A Philosophical History”, “The Moral Gap”, “Ethics and International Affairs”, “Why Bother Being Good” and “Plato’s Euthyphro”. John Hare has in his background the experience of teaching philosophy at the University of Lehigh from 1975 to 1989. In his “God’s Call” book, Hare discusses the divine command theory of morality, analyzing texts in Duns Scotus, Kant and contemporary moral theory. John joined me in an...

Kourosh Ziabari - Craig L. Blomberg is the Distinguished Professor of the New Testament, and has been a New Testament scholar since 1986 at the Denver Seminary in Colorado. Denver Seminary where Prof. Blomberg teaches is an evangelical graduate-level institution that was founded in 1950. Blomberg delivers speeches and writes on a number of Christianity, religion-related issues regularly. He has published several books on the New Testament of which we can name “From Pentecost to Patmos: An Introduction to Acts Through Revelation” and “The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary”. He specializes in the parables and the writings of Luke-Acts. Prof. Blomberg joined me in an interview to answer my questions...