Part and parcel of unpacking the Week Four Interfaith Lecture Series theme of “World Religion and a Shifting Population” is navigating — and celebrating — the increasing plurality of religious voices the world over. And Mahan Mirza, a scholar of Islam and global affairs, has found that the dyed-in-the-wool Catholic institution of the University of Notre Dame to be just the place for that work.
“At the university, we have a clear mission that education is enriched by bringing a plurality of voices to the table,” he told Notre Dame News in 2022. “And I think Notre Dame is deepening its commitment to that mission by opening up in this way.”
Mirza will discuss his work researching and teaching in a multi-faith space at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy.
It’s precisely because Notre Dame is a Catholic university, where scholars are encouraged to grapple with deeper meaning, that Mirza has found multi-faith work to be a natural extension of the institution’s mission.
“To be able to have an education and to have conversations of importance from a place of a deeper sense of being and purpose — you can’t do that at other universities that are secular,” he told Notre Dame News. “But here, you can relate your work or your studies to what you believe, to your sense of purpose in life. How do you reconcile what you’re learning here with what you believe or what you’ve brought with you? Those are incredible opportunities for us to explore at an institution like this.”
Mirza is a teaching professor in the Keough School of Global Affairs, and executive director of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, both at Notre Dame. Previously, Mirza was lead faculty for the Madrasa Discourses, a project to advance scientific and theological literacy at the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Before Notre Dame, Mirza was dean of faculty at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, America’s first accredited Muslim liberal arts college.
At Notre Dame, administration has established multi-faith prayer rooms, equipped with everything from washing stations for ablutions, to a stockpile of prayer rugs. There are also medallions indicating directions to both Mecca and Jerusalem, making the spaces — within a Catholic institution — welcoming for faculty, staff and students of both Islamic and Jewish faiths.
“I think that if you asked any practicing Muslim for the one thing that they would ask an employer, it would be a place of prayer and time to pray, when it comes time to perform the ritual obligation. And we have that here, and it’s a great blessing,” Mirza said in 2022. “I think a prayer room like this is a great example of what we call here at Keough, ‘integral human development.’ It’s providing, even in our buildings and architecture and space, what is needed for human beings to feel like they’re living full lives rather than tiptoeing around in a foreign land.”
