Professor Nguyen to Speak on Islam at RMA Meeting

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Martin Nguyen

The Retired Men’s Association of Greenwich (RMA) will host Dr. Martin Tran Nguyen discussing “Islam: Its Faith, Culture, and Place in America,” Wednesday, July 25 at 11 a.m.

What is Islam? What do Muslims believe? How do the more than 1.8 billion adherents of the faith live? And what is their history here in the United States of America? In this brief survey presentation Prof. Martin Nguyen will explore these complex and important questions. The first half of the presentation will provide an overview of the Muslim world today and the religion’s major tenets of belief. The faith portion of this section will focus on the Qur’an and the religious worldview that it constructs, while paying special attention to Islam’s similarities and differences with its fellow Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity.

The second half of the presentation turns to Islam and the Muslim experience in America. Beginning historically, this segment shares the long, and often overlooked, contributions of Muslims to the American historical narrative from the colonial era to the mid-twentieth century. The presentation ends with a look at Muslim life today and how different Muslim communities are engaging with the broader American experience.

Nguyen is Associate Professor of Islamic Religious Traditions in the Department of Religious Studies at Fairfield University. His area of research includes both classical Islamic theology and contemporary Muslim thought and practices. He is a scholar of the Qur’an, the central religious text of Islam, and has studied the traditions of its scriptural interpretations. He has written a book on a noted Qur’an Scholar: Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and published numerous articles on the Qur’an. He has also investigated social and cultural issues of modern Islam, including race and power and questions of identity and authority within Islam.

Nguyen has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and an M.A. in history and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies and history from Harvard University.

The program is free and takes place at the First Presbyterian Church, 1 West Putnam Ave. For additional information, visit greenwichrma.org or contact info@greenwichrma.org

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