Forum Agenda and Participant Biographies - Brookings Institution

hisham (h.a.) hellyer
eGypt
Hisham (H.A.) Hellyer is a Fellow of the University
of Warwick, and Director of the Visionary Consultants
Group, a global research consortium. Dr. Hellyer is a
United Nations “Global Expert” on minority/majority
relations in the West and the Muslim world, the
interplay between religion and modernity, the politics
of the Middle East, and radical political violence. In
the aftermath of the January 25th revolution in Egypt,
he founded the initiative Tahrir Squared, which is designed
to promote civil society activity in the region.
He was a Brookings’ Project on U.S. Relations with the
Islamic World Visiting Fellow and wrote an analysis
paper entitled, “Engagement with the Muslim Community
and Counter-Terrorism: British Lessons for the
West.” He is currently writing two books on Muslim
communities of the West and security policy, and the
Arab Spring. Hellyer has a B.A. in Law and an M.A. in
International Political Economy from the University of
Sheffield and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick.
yahya hendi
UnIted StateS
Yahya Hendi is the Muslim chaplain
at Georgetown University and
a Public Policy Conflict Resolution
Fellow of the Center for Dispute
Resolution at the University
of Maryland School of Law. Imam
Hendi is the Founder and President of Clergy Beyond
Borders and the Founder and President of the
newly-founded organization, Imams for Universe,
Dignity, Human Rights, and Dialogue. He also serves
as a member of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of
North America. Hendi has served as an adjunct faculty
member at the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and
Science and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at
Johns Hopkins University, and at Fordham University
and Hartford Seminary. He has written numerous
publications on many topics, including women
in Islam, women and gender relations in Islam, the
second coming of the Messiah, Islam and biomedical
ethics, and religion and Islam in the United States.
Hendi’s undergraduate education was in Islamic Studies
and his master’s and doctorate education were in
Comparative Religions with a focus on Christianity,
Judaism, comparative religions, and inter-religious
dialogue and relations.
2011 U.S.-ISLAMIC WORLD FORUM
Y e A R OF ChAnge
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Fiona hill
UnIted StateS
Fiona Hill is Director of the
Center on the United States and
Europe and a Senior Fellow at
Brookings. She has published extensively
on issues related to Russia,
the Caucasus, Central Asia,
regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. From
2006-2009, Hill was on leave from Brookings as the
National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia
at The National Intelligence Council. Prior to joining
Brookings, Hill was Director of Strategic Planning at
the Eurasia Foundation in Washington, DC, and also
directed technical assistance and research projects at
Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Hill holds an A.M. in Soviet Studies and
Ph.D. in History from Harvard University; and an
M.A. degree in Russian and Modern History from St.
Andrews University in Scotland.
Qamar-ul huda
UnIted StateS
Qamar-ul Huda is a Senior Program
Officer in the Religion
and Peacemaking Program and a
scholar of Islam at the U.S. Institute
of Peace (USIP). His areas of
expertise include Islamic theology,
intellectual history, ethics, comparative ethics, the
language of violence, conflict resolution, and nonviolence
in contemporary Islam. His edited USIP
book, The Crescent and Dove: Peace and Conflict Resolution
in Islam, provides a critical analysis of models
of nonviolent strategies, peace-building efforts, and
conflict resolution methods in Muslim communities.
His research is on comparative Sunni-Shi’ite interpretations
of social justice, ethics, dialogue, and the ways
in which the notion of justice is used and appropriated.
Dr. Huda examined the production of religious
knowledge, the diversity of religious practices, identity,
and peacemaking in Striving for Divine Union:
Spiritual Exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis (RoutledgeCurzon).
He has taught Islamic Studies and Comparative
Religion at Boston College, College of the Holy
Cross, and Brandeis University. He earned his doctorate
in Islamic Intellectual History from the University
of California, Los Angeles and his B.A. from Colgate
University.