Muslim Counter Narrative Led By Nationally Renowned UC Berkeley Scholar

Pleasant Hill, CA – Did you know that nearly 25% of Bay Area Muslims consider themselves victims of at least one hate crime since 9/11? That’s 125 times the national average. As a step toward enlightening our public about Muslims and Islamic culture, leading researchers urge civic organizations to create a counter narrative to negative portrayals of Muslims.

To help foster such a counter narrative, Pleasant Hill Library (as part of the Contra Costa County Library system) has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), in cooperation with the American Library Association (ALA), to host Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys, a community reading and discussion series. Discussions will be led by nationally-renowned scholar Dr. Hatem Bazian (UC Berkeley) and will cover five unique books. Discussions will take place at the Pleasant Hill Senior Center located at 233 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. The first program will explore the book When Asia Was the World by Stewart Gordon and will be held on January 14, 2014 from 6-7:30pm.

For more information on the series, including links for registering and ordering the books, please visit guides.ccclib.org/journeys. For questions or comments, contact Jeff Gibson, Project Director at 925-927-3240 or jgibson@ccclib.org.

Dr. Bazian received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Islamic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-founder and Academic Affairs Chair at Zaytuna College, the first Muslim Liberal Arts College in America. He is also a senior lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching courses on Islamic Law and Society, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Bazian serves as a visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary's College of California as well as an adviser to the Religion, Politics and Globalization Center at UC Berkeley. In 2009, he founded the Center for the Study and Documentation of Islamophobia at UC Berkeley, a research unit that studies the othering of Islam and Muslims. Recently he was named in the category for Social Justice as one of The Muslim 500; The World’s Most Influential Muslims by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center. Dr. Bazian’s current research focuses on Contra Costa County with the goal of discovering the needs of the growing Muslim community.