Dr Siddiqi Elected President of Academy of Judaic, Christian & Islamic Studies
Los Angeles , CA : Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi has been elected the new President of the Academy of Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies at UCLA.
The Academy has been working on relations between the three Abrahamic faiths for over 25 years. It has a regular course of instructions at UCLA and conducts lectures and seminars on commonalities and history of relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims.
The past presidents of the Academy were Dr. George Grose (Christian –Presbyterian) and Dr. Eliot Dorff (Jewish – Conservative).
Dr. Siddiqi is the Chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America and former President of the Islamic Society of North America. For the past 29 years Dr. Siddiqi has been serving the Islamic Society of Orange County as its Religious Director and Imam. He also served as Chairman of the Shura Council of Southern California. He is a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Egypt and the World Council of Mosques in Makkah. He is also a member of the Executive Council of the World Forum of Muslim Scholars and Thinkers in Makkah and a member of the Council of 100 for Dialogue between Islam and the West established at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Beside his work at the Islamic Society of Orange County, Dr. Siddiqi also teaches a course on Islamic Studies at Chapman University in Orange, and lectures on Islam and Interfaith relations at national and international forums. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his humanitarian and interfaith work. In 1999 he received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the National Council of Christians and Jews. In November 2005, Dr. Siddiqi was recognized by Orange County Register as one of the top 100 most influential people who shaped Orange County in the last twenty-five years. In August 2006, as part of a special feature called “The West 100”, the Los Angeles Times recognized Dr. Siddiqi as one of the top 100 most powerful people in Southern California.
Dr. Siddiqi has been a regular contributor to Pakistan Link for the past fifteen years and his column is avidly read by all and sundry.
He received his degrees in Islamic and Arabic studies from Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow, India and the Islamic University of Madina, Saudi Arabia. He holds an MA degree in Theology from Birmingham University in England and a PhD in Comparative Religion from Harvard University.
