The man who will take on the task of building up the University of Alberta's Islamic studies program hopes to open up interfaith dialogue.
"It's very clear that there is a major hunger at the academic level on Islam and the Muslim world," Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, currently a professor at the Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut, said Saturday.
"It is very important, especially after 9/11, to teach academic courses on the Muslim world and to have dialogue between Muslims and westerners." Abu-Rabi became the university's first Islamic studies research chair, starting July 1, 2008.
He is in Edmonton this weekend with his wife and two young children, meeting university faculty and students.
As chair, he will teach three courses and co-ordinate research initiatives. Abu-Rabi will also build on relationships with the Muslim community in and around Edmonton, which the university has been developing.
A leading international scholar with several published books and articles, Abu-Rabi has a special interest in interfaith dialogue between Islamic and Christian people.
"It's very clear that the majority of Christians and Muslims are open to dialogue with each other," he said. "It doesn't mean that they are in dialogue, but they like the idea." In a recent survey, 34 per cent of the Canadians polled were pessimistic about the future of Christian-Muslim relations. The poll suggested the country's French-English tensions will be overshadowed by Christian-Muslim strains.
The survey, carried out by the Association for Canadian Studies in early June, surveyed 1,500 people.
Abu-Rabi is skeptical of the poll, doubting that Christian-Muslim friction will take the lead over traditional French-English tensions.
He arranged trips to various Islamic countries for staff and faculty at Hartford. He hopes to continue that once he comes to Edmonton.
The U of A brought in Abu-Rabi to help put its Islam program at the Canadian forefront. But he said he will face tough competitors.
"McGill is very famous and has major relationships with the Muslim world," he said.
"It's very clear that this is a major university in Canada and they are interested in globalization and internationalization." Abu-Rabi has developed his own relationships with key members of the international Islam community. He brings contacts from Asia, the Middle East, Turkey and Europe. He speaks Arabic, Hebrew, English and French.
Abu-Rabi earned three degrees at American universities before becoming a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He also held a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas.
The U of A chose him as its first chair of Islamic studies after conducting two worldwide searches that took more than a year.