#scholars

People in Islam: Imam Suhaib Webb - Lecturer, Activist, Imam & Scholar

Suhaib Webb is one of the most influential of contemporary scholars in the U.S. and has impacted the lives of thousands in his journey through Islam. Imam Suhaib Webb went from a pre-Islam life of gangs, shootings and a career of DJ-ing to his spiritual awakening and conversion to Islam in 1992, after which he pursued a bachelor’s in Education from the University of Central Oklahoma. Suhaib Webb eventually got his education in Fiqh, Shariah, Islamic knowledge and the Arabic language from the world renowned Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. 

Prior to his current posting as the Imam of the extremely influential Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), Suhaib Webb had been active in numerous causes dealing with American youth and reverts, seeing as how he could genuinely relate to some of the most pressing troubles they might face in today’s society. Personally, Suhaib Webb has truly inspired me and helped me reach out to the spiritual side of my deen. Alongside Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, Usama Canon, and the like, Suhaib Webb sought to popularize the spread of the softer side of Islam and reach out to the younger generation of the Bay Area, California. Their talks and lectures sparked somewhat of a movement in the youth of the West Coast that still resonates throughout the country. The message of acceptance, peace, serenity, knowledge and wisdom became a central essence of most of the lectures we hear from these folks today. His move to the ISBCC as an Imam was met with bittersweet partings and most of us in the Bay Area still feel the loss of a great Scholar. 

However, before he left, he started a website that he hoped could serve as a virtual mosque experience where people could read, ask, learn, and relate. Visit the website, look around, and learn more about Imam Suhaib Webb and his influence across the country.

likeniobe:

this is the most harold bloom thing I’ve ever seen in my life

“When Delia Davin, the pioneer of Chinese women’s studies, arrived in Beijing in 1963, aged 19, there were still camels carrying coal and wooden ploughs in the fields outside the city. Davin, who has died of cancer aged 72, quickly established a rapport with her students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, whom she found to be ‘very serious about their work, but [to] have a gaiety which saves them from being priggish’. She taught them Irish songs as well as English grammar, and one of them recited ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ to console her, the student said, for not being in England on Shakespeare’s birthday.”

For more on Davin’s work as a pioneering scholar in the intersecting fields of Women’s Studies and East Asian Studies, see her obituary, composed by John Gittings and quoted above, in The Guardian (16 October 2016) as well as an appreciation posted by scholar Gail Hershatter at H-Net (16 October 2016).

Brooklyn Museum, ‘Scholar Contemplating a Cascade’: “The sixteenth-century ink-wash painting, a type rarely found outside Korean collections, uses strong, deliberate brushwork to convey ideas of space and perspective. Yi Chong, a Buddhist monk who came from a renowned family of artists, was a respected court painted during his short life. His work was heavily influenced by the Chinese tradition of the scholar-artist. The style of this painting invokes the Zhe School of Ming dynasty China, and the subject alludes to a poem by the Chinese poet Li Bo (701–762) concerning the beauty of a waterfall.”