Harvard professor to talk on religious, cultural literacy at HU

The Habib University (HU) will host a session on importance of religious and cultural literacy in a cosmopolitan world on Friday from 5pm to 7pm, an official announced on Monday.

An open public event, those interested in attending it could get themselves registered at the varsity’s official website. The talk would be delivered by Ali S Asani, a professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures at the Harvard University, and former director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Programme at Harvard.

Asani also serves on the faculty of the Departments of South Asian Studies and African and African-American Studies and is a specialist of Islam in South Asia. His research focuses on Shia and Sufi devotional traditions in the region. In addition to that he has studied popular and folk forms of Muslim devotional life, and Muslim communities in the West.

His books include The Bujh Niranjan: An Ismaili Mystical Poem and Ecstasy and Enlightenment: The Ismaili Devotional Literatures of South Asia. Prof Asani has also had numerous articles published in countless prestigious journals and encyclopaedias.