Islam scholar to give Boniuk Institute talk Jan. 24

Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance will host a Jan. 24 talk by Islam scholar and Rice alumna Zahra Jamal ’00 on “Preserving the Faith: Cultural Assets Among Shi’is in Soviet and Post-Soviet Tajikistan.”

ZAHRA JAMAL

Jamal’s lecture, which will be from 4:30 to 5:30 in Sewall Hall, Room 307, will focus on the Shia Muslim population of Tajikistan, a primarily Sunni Muslim Central Asian state that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Jamal is a senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where she directs the Civil Islam Initiative. She is also assistant director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s Center for the Study of American Muslims and scholar on the Isma’ili Tariqah and Religious Education Board USA.

RSVPs to tolerance@rice.edu for this free public event are requested. The event is part of the institute’s Boniuk Conversations Event Series and is co-presented with His Highness the Aga Khan Council for the Southwestern United States.