Month: March 2025

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event is now being held on Zoom from 2:00-3:30pm. To register for the event, go here: https://drake-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/r2IkhO0vRnGanQ_YgnCwhw.

(Note that you will need to have an active zoom account to register, but that if you don’t, you can sign up for a free zoom account here: zoom.us/signup.)

On Saturday, April 5, from 2:00–3:30 pm, Drake University’s Comparison Project, in conjunction with the Abdelkader Education Project, will host “Islam in Iowa: A Celebration of Historical Roots and Contemporary Realities” online (zoom). The event, which is free and open to the public, features interactive sessions about Islam in Iowa, presentation of the 2025 Abdelkader Education Project contest awards, and a keynote by Dr. William Lawrence, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Area Studies at the National Council on US-Arab Relations, Washington, DC.

Local and regional Islamic experts will lead two blocks of concurrent sessions about topics including Islam in Iowa, Women in Islam, and Mystical Islam. Special attention will be given to the nineteenth-century Algerian leader Emir Abdelkader, after whom the town of Elkader was named in 1846, as well as the “Mother Mosque of America” in Cedar Rapids, the oldest standing purpose-built mosque in the U.S. (1934).

At the conclusion of the sessions, the Abdelkader Education Project will present awards to students, whose entries took inspiration from the ethical leadership of Emir Abdelkader. The event concludes with a brief keynote by Dr. William Lawrence titled, “Globalizing the Emir: Reflections on a recent visit to North Africa and US relations with the Muslim World.”

The event also includes dozens of booths about local Islamic mosques and organizations and intercultural interfaith programs and organizations, cultural performances and delicacies, and a photo and art exhibition.

The Comparison Project engages in the practice of comparative philosophy of religion, fosters understanding of local-lived religion, and cultivates interfaith literacy and leadership. It is supported by Drake’s Center for the Humanities, Drake’s Slay Fund for Social Justice, Interfaith America, and Cultivating Compassion: The Dr. Richard Deming Foundation.

The non-profit Abdelkader Education Project believes in the power of education to build bridges of cultural understanding that inspire, challenge, and connect our global community. It is a global network of individuals and organizations, developing educational resources and opportunities for engagement in the Abdelkader Story based on John W. Kiser’s biography Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abdelkader.

On Sunday, April 12, we will celebrate the annual holiday of Vaisakhi from roughly 12:00 to 2:00 pm with the Sikh gurdwara in West Des Moines, the Iowa Sikh Association (1115 Walnut St.).

The service will include many of the elements of a typical Sunday worship service: the signing of hymns (kirtan), reading from sacred scripture (Guru Granth Sahib), community prayers (aardas), and the sharing of the sacred sacrament (karah prashad, the so-called “holy pudding”), after which a free vegetarian meal will be served (langar). Dress modestly, remove shoes at door, and don a head scarf (available at the door for both women and men). Also, refrain from pointing outstretched legs toward the holy book/altar.

This event is part of the “Meet My Religious Neighbor” series, which is co-programmed with CultureALL, the Des Moines Area Religious Council, and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.

On Thursday, April 17, at 6:00 pm, in Drake’s Sussman Theater (lower level of Olmsted Center), Dr. Max Thornton, independent scholar, will deliver a lecture on “Getting What We Deserve: Theologies at the Intersection of Disability and Work.”

For those wishing to attend the lecture virtually, please sign on here at least five minutes in advance: https://drake-edu.zoom.us/j/85321293904.

Dr. Thornton’s lecture will think through some of the connections between disability, work, and the theological ideas that shape popular views on both in the US. Concepts of punishment for sin, redemptive suffering, and character formation are embedded in the ways we think about both disability and work; the place where they meet is shaped by racialized ideas about labor, poverty, and salvation, as well as the belief that God materially rewards the faithful. Yet disability theology offers an alternative to these habits of thought, asking us to rethink both our definition and our valorization of “work”; to withhold judgments about sin, punishment, redemption, and other metaphorical readings of disability; and to take seriously our shared human vulnerability.