IQSA 2015 – Updates & Announcements

IQSA 2015 – Updates & Announcements

Dear Friends,

I trust this message finds you well, and for those of us nearing the end of our academic year I wish you all the best of luck. Since our meeting in San Diego, the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA) has successfully completed a number of important activities, and we continue to develop the organization to better serve our members and fulfill our mission and vision. The purpose of this message is to inform about our recent activity.

New Homepage & Welcome Video

To serve you better our landing page on IQSAWEB.ORG is now simpler than ever. Visitors are given a warm welcome and introduction to IQSA by watching leading members of the community speak on VIDEO. Furthermore, the number on the page has been reduced to include only what is essential—enjoy!

IQSA Membership & AM Registration

To become an official MEMBER of IQSA for 2015, and to receive exclusive mmber benefits, please GO HERE (http://members.iqsaweb.org). There is a flat $25 membership fee for 2015. (Note that if you became an IQSA member in 2014 you need to sign up once again for 2015)

To attend/present in our 2015 annual meeting, taking place in Atlanta this November, you will need to REGISTER through the SBL website HERE (https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ereg/index.php?eventid=119829&categoryid=1021237&t=ccee0d3cfcb94900b333ce9916cb48fe). You will register as an “affiliate.”

Now Online: RQR and Membership Directory

Current IQSA members already have access to exclusive member benefits, namely:

* The Review of Qur’anic Research (ACTIVE)

* Membership Directory (ACTIVE)

Coming Soon: Qur’an Seminar, Job Board and JIQSA

Current and future members will soon have access to the following exclusive services and products as well:

* The interactive Qur’an Seminar website (2015)

* IQSA Job Board (2016)

* The Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (2016)

2015 International Meeting (Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Our much anticipated international meeting in Yogyakarta, Indonesia will take place August 4-7, 2015. We are very excited about this conference and the international scholarly exchange it will foster. We are also very pleased with the interest of our members and the public in attending this conference. For more information please GO HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/meetings/im2015)

2015 Annual Meeting (Atlanta, GA, USA)

The program for Atlanta is almost set and promises to be both informative as well as exciting. For more information please GO HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/meetings/) and do not forget to become a MEMBER and REGISTER (See above).

Be an IQSA citizen – nominate future officers

All IQSA members are encouraged to submit names of potential candidates for the following positions:

* President Elect for 2016

* IQSA Board Member

* Nominating Committee Member

Nominations should be sent to contact@iqsaweb.org. For more information please GO HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/2015/04/21/call-for-nominations)

Share your research – BLOG, RQR or JIQSA

If you or a colleague are currently undertaking research as a faculty member or post-doc, working on a new project as a graduate assistant or would like to share information about an upcoming Qur’an related conference, workshop or service, please consider writing a blog post for us. Your blog post will receive one to two thousand views in the first week! Blog posts in languages other than English are acceptable. Blog contributions should be sent to Dr. Vanessa Degifis (vdegifis@wayne.edu)

Scholarly reviews should be submitted to RQR and academic articles to JIQSA (See above).

Needed: Two Grad Student Assistants

We are seeking two graduate students assistants to help out with editorial and online assistance. This is a great opportunity for networking, professional development and hand-on experience. Learn more about these positions HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/2015/03/16/iqsa_jobs_grad_assts). Applications are welcome anytime but an initial review of applications will take place by June 1, 2015.

Social Media

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @IQSAWEB and Like us on Facebook, search “International Qur’anic Studies Association.”

Special Thanks

IQSA’s continued success is not possible without the dedication and skill of its officers and employees. I would especially like to thank Irfana Hussain, Vanessa DeGifis, Mun’im Sirry, Sean Anthony, Catherine Bronson, Mehdi Azaiez, Gabriel Reynolds, Nicolai Sinai as well as all unit chairs, Michael Pregill, Holger Zellentin and Missy Colee and her team at SBL.

Finally, please do not forget to join IQSA by becoming a MEMBER and REGISTERING for our 2015 Atlanta annual meeting by May 22, 2015. That’s one month away!

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Standing Committees and our partners I would like to express our deepest gratitude to all IQSA members and friends.

Sincerely,

Emran El-Badawi, Executive Director

A Letter of Thanks to IQSA Members

Dear IQSA members and friends,

I hope this message reaches you well, and that you found our time together in San Diego, both enlightening as well as enjoyable. Like many of you, I had the pleasure of meeting old friends and making new ones. I speak for myself, council and all IQSA officers when I say that we are quite pleased with how the conference went. Our sessions were well attended, and the papers were engaging and thought provoking. Our current membership numbers over 450 from all around the world, and we had the pleasure of having over one hundred of them represented during the Friday sessions, especially the keynote lecture and reception. 50 people attended our first business meeting, at which prof. Farid Esack was unanimously voted president elect for 2015.

We are, furthermore, heartened and impressed by the enthusiasm for IQSA–both within North American and internationally. Participants and audience members came from around the globe, including Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia, Europe and North America. This all bodes well for IQSA, not least because this is just our second annual meeting. The task of IQSA’s executive office is now to keep up with this growth and accommodate our members for many future meetings.

I am also happy to share with you that our success in San Diego played a significant role within the larger SBL / AAR conference, for the second year in a row. More on this and several other matters of business soon.

scholars in library_maqamat hariri

Please do not forget to tell your friends, colleagues and peers about us. IQSA members come from an incredibly diverse range of academic backgrounds, including Qur’anic Studies, Islamic Studies, Biblical Studies, Middle East Studies, textual studies, inter-religious studies, hermeneutics, studies on manuscripts or material culture, the hard sciences, and so on. There are numerous ways to stay connected with IQSA throughout the year, namely by:

* Becoming a member (http://membership.iqsaweb.org/Join.aspx)

* Subscribing to our blog (IQSAWEB.ORG)

* Joining the private IQSA Discussion Group

* Liking the “International Qur’anic Studies Association” on Facebook

* Following “@IQSAWEB” on Twitter

* Publishing with us!

   (a) If you have an outstanding article or book length manuscript

        (English, Arabic), please contact JIQSA@iqsaweb.org

See also our call for papers HERE

(https://iqsaweb.org/publications/call-for-papers-jiqsa/)

   (b) If you have a minor project you would like to share over our blog

        (any language), please contact vdegifis@wayne.edu

        (As many as one thousand people may read your post in one

         week)

Next, you may anticipate getting full access to the keynote paper by prof. Angelika Neuwirth and response by prof. Andrew Rippin. in December 2014. Soon after the New Year you should also receive news about Membership and Member Benefits for 2015. Current and past papers published by IQSA are available HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/publications/papers/) and program books are available HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/meetings/).

On behalf of us all, I wish to thank our 2014 acting president Andrew Rippin, 2015 president Reuven Firestone, and congratulate as well as thank our 2015 president elect Farid Esack. Also special thanks go to Nicolai Sinai, Gabriel Reynolds, John Kutsko, Irfana Hussain, Vanessa DeGifis, Ryann Craig, Hakaya Productions and our friends at both SBL and AAR. I very much look forward to our meetings next year in Yogyakarta Indonesia (Aug, 2015) and Atlanta, GA (Nov, 2015).

Finally, thank you all for making IQSA a success!

Sincerely,

Emran El-Badawi, Executive Director

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2013. All rights reserved.

Call for Papers: Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association

IQSA is pleased to announce the launch of the Journal of the International Qurʾanic Studies Association (JIQSA). In support of the Association’s mission of fostering scholarship on the Qurʾan, JIQSA will commence publication twice annually beginning in the first quarter of 2016.

(greenzblog.com)

(greenzblog.com)

The Journal is being launched at a time of particular vitality and growth in Qurʾanic Studies, and its primary goal is to encourage the further development of the discipline in innovative ways. Methodologies of particular interest to the Journal include historical-critical, contextual-comparative, and literary approaches to the Qurʾan. We especially welcome articles that explore the Qurʾan’s origins in the religious, cultural, social, and political contexts of Late Antiquity; its connections to various literary precursors, especially the scriptural and parascriptural traditions of older religious communities; the historical reception of the Qurʾan in the West; the hermeneutics and methodology of Qurʾanic exegesis and translation (both traditional and modern); the transmission and evolution of the textus receptus and the manuscript tradition; and the application of various literary and philological modes of investigation into Qurʾanic style and compositional structure.

We currently welcome submissions of articles for publication in the first volume. The complete Call for Papers is available here. Articles will be rigorously peer-reviewed through a double-blind review process, with reviewers appointed by the Head Editor and the Editorial Board. Interested parties are invited to email JIQSA@iqsaweb.org for more information about JIQSA and style and submission guidelines.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2014. All rights reserved.