WOMEN & DIVINITY: From Religious Heritage to Popular Imagination — Lady Fatima Zahra Lecture Series

Women & Divinity: From Religious Heritage to Popular Imagination. The second biennial lecture of the Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity, Lady Fatima Zahra Lecture Series.

The Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity

The Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity at Habib University is the first of its kind in the world, dedicated to the study of women, theological authority, and conceptions of the divine across religious traditions.

The Chair takes its name from Lady Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the paramount feminine role model in Islam and a universal example for women and men alike. Housed within the Comparative Humanities program, it contributes to Habib University's engagement with the global study of religion.

Rooted in a reparative approach to education, the Chair addresses a significant gap in academic discourse by studying the role of women in society through religious traditions. It re-evaluates women's often-overlooked contributions, fosters informed scholarship on the feminine aspects of divinity, and brings into the study of gender the spiritual dimensions that secular gender studies often overlook. It explores these themes across faiths, with special emphasis on the Muslim tradition.

Habib University is founded on the premise that enduring institutions are sustained through the disciplined cultivation of knowledge. The establishment of the Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity reflects a deliberate institutional commitment to embedding critical fields of inquiry within the permanent academic structure of the University.

Mr. Abbas D. Habib receiving a certificate on stage at the establishment of the Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair

The Chair's
Benefactor

The Lady Fatima Zahra Chair in Women and Divinity at Habib University has been generously endowed by Mr. Abbas D. Habib and his family, in memory of his late mother, Zainab Dawood Habib.

Mr. Abbas D. Habib brings more than 50 years of experience in commerce, industry, and banking, both in Pakistan and internationally. With the inception of Bank AL Habib Limited in 1991, he became its Director and Joint Managing Director, and since 2016 he has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank AL Habib Limited. Mr. Abbas D. Habib is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Bankers Pakistan and a Director on the Board of Habib Insurance Company Limited.

For generations, the Habib family has been synonymous with service to community. Its philanthropy long predates the creation of Pakistan, and in the years after Partition, the family helped build the institutions on which a young country depended. Its commitment ran deepest in education, through schools that opened their doors to all who needed them, and it reached into wider community welfare, from support for orphans and widows to the many causes that carried this tradition forward.

Mr. Abbas D. Habib and his family continue to carry that ethos forward, through their sustained support for education and welfare in other domains. The Lady Fatima Zahra Chair is a product of the same conviction, that investing in knowledge is among the most enduring ways to serve a community. In honoring the memory of a beloved mother, the Chair also extends a family's legacy of giving into new intellectual territory, and ensures that it will continue to inspire scholars and students for generations to come.

Inaugural Chair Holder PROFESSOR MARCIA HERMANSEN

Professor Marcia Hermansen is a distinguished scholar of Islamic Studies whose research spans Islamic thought, Sufism, Islam in South Asia, Muslims in America, and women and gender in Islam. She formerly served as Professor of Islamic Studies in the Theology Department of Loyola University Chicago, where she also directed the Islamic World Studies Program.

Dr. Hermansen earned her Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago and pursued extended cultural immersion and language training in Egypt, Jordan, India, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan. She conducts research in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as several major European languages, Dr. Hermansen's scholarship combines textual translation and analysis with religious studies theory, while pursuing theological inquiry and addressing contemporary global issues. She has published extensively and internationally, advancing public understanding of Islam's intellectual and social traditions.

Abstract of the Talk