Biographical Notes on the Contributors
Editor copyrightholder marliesterborg@gmail.com
Dr. Marlies ter Borg was born in Indonesia in December 1948, during the Indonesian War of Independence. Brought up in England and Holland, in a pleasant mix of protestant denominations, she does now not profess to a particular faith. She is a free lance philosopher and bridgebuilder. She studied philosopy and sociology at Leiden and Amsterdam University, and received a PhD from the Free University of Amsterdam with a thesis on the ‘Belief in Progress and Economic Growth’.She worked as parliamentary assistant for the Dutch Green Party; at the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR); and at the Free University of Amsterdam as polemologist. During the Cold War she organised bridge building seminars between East and West, resulting in a timely publication with contributions from NATO and Warsaw Treaty experts. She intiated and led the Foundation Building for Peace, which ran a housing project for Russian military families returning home after the Cold War. She now works As a free lance philosopher and public intellectual, giving lectures and writing.
Karin Bisschop is a Dutch ‘new’ Muslima, who has emigrated to Canada. She co-edited the Dutch Book Koran en Bijbel in Verhalen,on which this anthology is based. She initiated and runs www.muslima.nl and www.muslima.ca
Dr. Herman Beck is professor of Religious Studies, specifically Islam, and at present dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the identity of Muslims in the Netherlands. He held a special professorship at the Islamic State University (Institute Agama Islam Negeri) Sunan Kalijaga (SuKa) at Yogyakarta, Central Java. He was born in 1953 in former Dutch New Guinea, as the son of a Dutch religious Minister and a nurse. He is a professed Christian.
John Esposito is University Professor, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. He is founding Director of the (Prince Alwaleed) Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Esposito was raised a Roman Catholic in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City, and spent a decade in a Catholic monastery.
Khaled Abou El Fadl (born in Kuwait) is a professor of law at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law where he teaches Islamic law, immigration, human rights, international and national security law. He holds degrees from Yale University (B.A.), University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D.) and Princeton University (M.A./Ph.D.). He also received formal training in Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt and Kuwait. Abou El Fadl is a Muslim.
Reverend Dr. Martha Frederiks is special professor in Missiology at the University of Utrecht the Netherlands, and director of the Interuniversity Institute for Missiology and Oecumenica, IIMO . She was protestant missionary in Gambia, and advisor for the Project for Christian Muslim Relations in Africa (ProCMuRA).
Dr. Moch Nur Ichwan was KNAW (Dutch Royal Academy of Science) Post-Doctoral Fellow 2007-2009 and is now lecturer at the Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is researcher at the Center for the Study of Islam and Social Transformation (CISForm) of the same University and director of SAMHA Institute for the Study of Religion, Society and Human Rights, Yogyakarta. His current research is on “Ulama and Re-islamisation of the Public Sphere in Indonesia” and “Politics of Shari`atization in Aceh”. He is a professed Muslim.
Ruud Lubbers, a Christian Democrat from a Roman Catholic background, was Prime Minister of the Netherlands for more than a decade and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He is co-founder with Michael Gorbachev of the Earth Charter. He was professor at the Dutch Universities of Tilburg and Rotterdam, and is honorary doctor of Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
Dr. Mehmet Pacaci is professor at Ankara University Turkey. His specialty is Tafsir or interpretation of the Qur’an. His Ph.D is on comparative eschatology – exploring the synergies and distinctions amidst Muslim, Jewish and Christian Holy Scriptures on eschatology. He is specifically interested in hermeneutical problems of interpreting and understanding the Qur’an. Historical setting of the Qur’an, pre-Islamic Arabian and Semitic culture as a background of the Qur’anic message, modern approaches in the commentary of the Qur’an in comparison to classical understanding of Islam are among his interests. He is currently attached to the Embassy of Turkey in Washington D.C., visiting scholar at George Mason University Ali Vural Ak Center for Islamic Studies and Scholar in Residence, the Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C.
Andrew Rippin is professor of History, and specialist in Islamic Studies with an interest in the Qur’an and the history of its interpretation, at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He is fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. e died shortly after this book was published. It is an honour to have him as an author.
Awraham Soetendorp was rabbi of the Reformed (Liberal) Jewish Community of The Hague, and rabbi of the Union of Dutch Reformed Jewish Communities. Born in 1943 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Rabbi Soetendorp survived the Nazi regime as a “hidden child”. After the war he found his parents and the family lived in Israel from 1948 until 1953. Rabbi Soetendorp has been active in a wide variety of progressive, humanitarian, and interfaith organizations and meetings including the Anne Frank Foundation, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the World Council of Religious Leaders, the Earth Charter, ‘Water for Life’ and the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders. He is President of the Jacob Soetendorp Institute of Human Values.
Dr Barbara Freyer Stowasser is Sultanate of Oman Professor in Arabic and Islamic Literature at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. United States of America. She studied at UCLA and Ankara and gained a PhD from the University of Münster, Germany. She was the 34th president of the Middle East Studies Association.At present, Dr. Stowasser is working on a book on Gender Discourses in the Tafsir and Fatwa Literatures, a textbook on the Islamic Tafsir, and a book on Islam and Time.
Shortly after the publishing of this website she died. It was an honour to have her as an author.