Ebrahim Moosa's New Website

Please visit Ebrahim Moosa's new illustrated website, which features details of his publications, his awards and honors, multimedia resources, a new blog and more:

Ebrahim Moosa

Ebrahim Moosa lectures before the King of Morocco

The Religion Department's Ebrahim Moosa has been in the news after delivering a lecture “Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Islamic Thought” hosted by His Majesty King Muhammad VI of Morocco. Duke in the News has the full story:

King of Morocco Attends Lecture By Duke Professor Ebrahim Moosa

This week, Moosa delivered a lecture, “Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Islamic Thought,” that was hosted by His Majesty King Muhammad VI of Morocco and was held in the renovated Qarawiyin Mosque in the historic city of Fez. Attending the lecture, which came during the holy month of Ramadan, were the king, a royal entourage, scores of diplomats, Moroccan government representatives, ministers and senior representatives of the armed forces, among others.

“It was a real honor to be invited to speak to such a distinguished audience,” said Moosa . . .

Click on the link above to read the full story, which was also covered in the Duke Chronicle:

Prof lectures to Moroccan monarch
By: Sam Choe

How Muslim Communities Counter Radicalism

From today's Duke University News and Communications:

How Muslim Communities Counter Radicalism to Be Study Topic

Duke and UNC researchers will seek to learn from the responses of four American Muslim communities to radical Islamic movements across the globe

Durham, NC -- Finding out how American Muslims address messages of extremism in their communities will be the goal of a two-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will then use the information to recommend policies for reducing the likelihood that the United States experiences the type of homegrown terrorism seen recently in Europe . . .

. . . Center researchers will seek to learn from the responses of four American Muslim communities to radical Islamic movements across the globe, said Charles Kurzman, a UNC associate professor of sociology and co-principal investigator in the project. With another co-principal investigator, Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke, and graduate students, Kurzman and Schanzer will study Muslim communities in Buffalo, Houston, Seattle and the Triangle.

Click on the link above for the full story. The story is also covered in today's News and Observer.

On Writing Muscle

Writing can sometimes become an obsession. That is when you cannot get down to do the writing. At times it is one of the hardest things to do. As an educator, I have to double check myself when one often as a matter of routine insist on students submitting their work in writing. Good writing and creative writing can be very demanding. Academic writing has its own conventions and styles. Increasingly I find the best writing to be without jargon, yet profound. Although I also recognize that jargon is shorthand in order to communicate very complex ideas and eases discussion within an in-group where people understand and share the common language.

But to write profoundly requires a mastery of the craft of writing. It also means one is reading the work of accomplished authors and learning from their styles and methods. Stephan Jay Gould, for instance, with his simplicity of style managed to communicate effectively with his readers. I still find William H. Gass to be one of the most profound writers, who can weave complex ideas from Nietzsche's philosophy to Holderlin's hymns into digestible prose. In fact, I envy his skill and talent.

To become a writer one would profit to heed the advice of Gail Sher in One Continuos Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers. Sher writes:

1. Writers write.
2. Writing is a process
3. You don't know what your writing will be until the end of the process. (I thought it was only me!)
4. If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is not to write.

This is very true. Sher cites the poet John Ashberry who once told an interviewer, "It's important to try and write when you are in the wrong mood or the weather is wrong. Even if you don't succeed you'll be developing a muscle that may do it later."

Well the weather is cool today and my mood, well, I have been struggling all morning to get to my writing. So blogging is one way to develop a writing muscle.