An expert in pre-modern Islamic thought will deliver the next instalment of the York-Noor Lecture 
Series for 2004-2005. Professor Ahmet Karamustafa, a professor of history and religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, will present, “Human Freedom in the Qu’ran” on Sunday, Jan. 9, at the Noor Cultural Centre in Toronto, and “Issues in Qu’ran Interpretation” on Monday, Jan. 10, at York University.
Left: Ahmet Karamustafa
An accomplished writer on subjects relating to Islamic thought, Karamustafa is the author of God’s Unruly Friends (University of Utah Press, 1994), a monograph on ascetic movements in medieval Islamic mysticism; and Vahidi’s Menakib-i Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can (929/1522): Critical Edition and Analysis (The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1993), a study of a 16th-century mystical text in Ottoman Turkish.
Karamustafa is also the assistant editor as well as the author of several articles in Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (University of Chicago Press, 1992). His main area of research is pre-modern Islamic thought; he is currently working on two book projects, one on Islamic perspectives on religion and the other a historical survey of Sufism (under contract with Edinburgh University Press).
At Washington University, Karamustafa teaches courses on all aspects of Islam, Islamic history as well as general courses in religious studies. These include: Islamic Civilization; Approaches to the Qur’an and Muhammad; Sufism: God’s Friends in Islam; Islam and Modernity; Understanding Islamic Rituals; Islamic Legal Traditions; Soul, Self, Person in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: A Comparative Examination; Theories of Religion; Senior Seminar in the Study of Religion; Islamic History 622-1200; and Islamic History 1200-1800.
Details of the upcoming session of the York-Noor Lecture Series
Sunday, Jan. 9, 3 to 5pm
“Human Freedom in the Qu’ran”
Noor Cultural Centre
123 Wynford Drive, Toronto (DVP/Wynford Drive)
Monday, Jan. 10, noon to 2:30pm
“Issues in Qu’ran Interpretation”
Room 021 (basement), Winters College
Keele campus, York University