Jamal J. Elias is a scholar and professor of
Religious Studies who currently serves as the Special Advisor to the Provost of Aga Khan University. He has written and lectured widely on the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
,
Sufism, poetry and modern society.
Elias was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and attended
Burn Hall School, St. Mary's Academy and
Aitchison College. He received his BA in Religious Studies from
Stanford University, his MA in Turkish Literature, and his PhD in Religious Studies (Islamic Studies) from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
in 1991. He has taught at a number of prestigious educational institutions in USA, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania,
Amherst College, and Brown University, and he has lectured broadly in North and South America, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and Asia.
At The Aga Khan University, he researches and teaches on Muslim Civilizations, including Islam and Bioethics, and Media on the Muslim World.
Elias also serves regularly as a consultant on legal and social issues related to the status of Muslims in America. He has provided expert testimony on cases related to freedom of religion and expression, anti-Muslim bias, workers rights, immigration and asylum, and child custody. He was called on to write to the
Administrative Review Board
The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the detainees held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The purpose of the Board is to re ...
s held at the
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
s.
[ Murat Kurnaz ARB '']Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
'', pages 103-105 The Boards were authorized to recommend whether Guantanamo captives should continue to be held in
extrajudicial
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...
detention. One of the justifications offered for the continued detention of over three dozen of the Guantanamo captives was that they had participated in the activities of a
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
i Islamic missionary group named
Tablighi Jamaat
Tablighi Jamaat (, also translated as "propagation party" or "preaching party")
is a transnational Deobandi Islamic Dawah, missionary movement
that focuses on exhorting Muslims to be more religiously observant
and encouraging fellow memb ...
. Elias wrote at the time that this was a peaceful group, and that, in particular, one of the tenets of the movement was that participation on a Tabligh mission was a valid substitute for participation in
Jihad.
Elias is also a
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographers
As in other ...
who has held a number of solo and group exhibitions in the United States. He also researches
Pakistani truck art; he has written widely on the subject.
Selected Bibliography
*''The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of 'Alā' ad-Dawla as-Simnānī''. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
*''Death before Dying: The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
*''Islam''. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999.
*''On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity, and Culture in Pakistan''. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2011.
*''Aisha's Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
*''Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion, and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018.
References
External links
Elijah Interfaith Institute: Jamal J. Elias Audio Lectures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elias, Jamal J.
Amherst College faculty
American academics of Pakistani descent
American writers of Pakistani descent
Aitchison College alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Walter H. Annenberg Professor
Living people
Pashtun people
People from Mansehra District
Year of birth missing (living people)