Junaid Ahmad's Response

In response to comments of a reader, Mr. Junaid has sent us the following message:

"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.htmlI 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
July 21, 2008 4:36 AM"