We have received following comments on our recent posts from a reader.
"The write ups by Jensen and Podur are important as they show the direction IIUI is taking in becoming an enlightened moderate institution. Last Summer, the university organized many lectures under “Distinguished Lecture Series” and those invited for the lectures were Farid Esack, As’ad Abukhalil, Shabana Mir and Robert Jenson. If we look at the profiles of these scholars, we find that intellectually, they all belong to the same group: the leftist liberals, all settled in America and sharing almost the same views. The person instrumental in their being at IIU is Junaid S Ahmed, son of Dr Mumtaz Ahmed, the Executive Director of Iqbal Institute at IIUI. Junaid, though in his early twenties and law graduate, is presented as one of the important thinkers of contemporary Islam by Podur in the article written at his blog. It is not clear, however, if he is serving IIUI voluntarily or is employed by the Iqbal Institute.
It is appreciable that IIUI invites people from overseas to interact with the faculty and the students. But sometimes, it seems that there is a clear tilt towards a specific intellectual disposition and the other intellectual positions are not represented in the people who are invited by Junaid at IIUI. And perhaps, this owes to Juanid’s own position in this regard. Secondly, the two visitors to IIUI this Summer, Jensen and Podur, were engaged in teaching courses to IIUI students. I am sure their respective departments were not taken on board before inviting them to IIUI. If IIUI pays money to people, and it does, then the teaching faculty from the concerned departments should be asked to deliberate on what are their needs and requirements. Without such consultations, it is not possible to reap the maximum benefit from such initiatives. For example, the course run by Podur on Critical Thinking could have been equally beneficial for students from all the faculties and it would have been advisable to select students from all the faculties. Then why only female students from Psychology department??? Secondly, Podur is an expert in Environmental issues and was it not good, had he been involved in some teaching at Department of Environmental Sciences?? Similarly, Jensen’s teaching of Media Law and Ethics was equally important for the students from Faculty of Shari’a and Law but it seems that people from that faculty were not consulted at all.
In all likelihood, the current initiatives at IIUI are arbitrary and consequently a waste of public money. They are not going to build the capacity of IIUI in engaging globally in dialogue and research. So far as Junaid is there to arrange speakers for the Summer, there would be some activity. And it’s not sure, how long he will be in Islamabad. Perhaps, until he finds some other big job. It is time for IIUI to become an institution in the real sense of the word and prove that it has really grown, not only in years!!!
PS. Shabana Mir mentioned above is the person who is one of the beneficiaries of Muslehuddin Islamic Trust. She went to Cambridge to study something related to English language and never returned to IIUI but only as a “Distinguished Speaker.” I am not sure if her Qarza-e-Hasana has been paid by her, over-written by the Trustees of MIT or still waiting to be paid or for that matter, she considers this expression a Punjabi one which means: laugh when the lender asks for his debt to be returned."
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1 comment:
Salaams:
Let me correct a number of fallacies in this posting:
1) Robert Jensen came last summer (2007) to deliver some lectures, and at that time the new Media Studies dept. asked him if he could come and teach an intensive 3-week seminar the following summer. Prof. Jensen and the Media Studies dept. have been in touch since then (i.e., for many months) to organize this course, and the only thing I have really been involved in is organizing Prof. Jensen's (and Prof. Podur's) public talks, both at and outside the university. Also, I in fact tried my best over the few weeks before the course began to advertise it to students (and junior faculty) from all departments.
2) As far as Prof. Podur's class, I went to each and every department to advertise the course. Admittedly, I began a little late on this matter, but no single department was informed before others. It was just by chance we had more female psychology students in this class. But we also had a number of IR, economics, etc. students.
3) The comments forget to mention that I also invited Prof. Shahid Alam (aslama.org) and Prof. Salman Sayyid, both of whom are perhaps the two of the leading Muslim intellectuals defending Muslims' right to self-determination and resistance to the empire. Also, to say that all of the abovementioned scholars are of one single ideological viewpoint, one can just look here to see how that's not really so: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/esack310707.html
I have also invited Dr. Anis Ahmad, et al.
4) Prof. Podur nowhere says that I (Junaid) am "one of the most important thinkers of contemporary Islam" nor does he imply that. He certainly praises the work that I'm doing, but that's it. Please don't misquote, esp. since I'm just a simple law graduate/PhD candidate and don't have any pretenses of being some "important thinker."
5) As far as myself, everything I did over the past few weeks for the university was completely voluntary. I am currently continuing work for my PhD. What I do at IIU-I is because I love that institution, with whatever flaws that may exist there, and I love the students, and IIU-I is where I want to devote my efforts (and potentially teach at, inshallah). I am not interested in working at places like LUMS, etc., where all too often many of the best and brightest flock to.
6) As far as Prof. Jensen and Prof. Podur, their remumeration consisted of paying for their airline ticket and providing their local accomodation, but not a penny more. They are two of the most principled persons I know, and one should be really careful before engaging in baseless speculation about how much certain people are being paid, etc.
7) Dr. Shabana Mir did not come last year as a "distinguished scholar," but as part of a younger scholars program in which she conducted several social science research methodology workshops for social science as well as other (IRI, etc.) students. No one ever designated her as a "distinguished scholar."
8) Finally, let me just say that I suspect the writer of these comments to which I'm responding is someone at the university, who probably knows me or knows of me. Perhaps he/she should ask him/herself how much more productive and constructive it would've been to, instead of writing this irritated commentary, to come to me directly and help me make these programs better and more accessible to more and more students. But alas, the world we live in tends to be more about competing egos than of actually getting work, significant and potentially transformative, done.
Wasalaam
Junaid
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