Farid Esack

(Cape Town, South Africa, 1959) is a Muslim-theologian, presently attached to the Xavier University in Ohio where he holds an Endowed Chair in Ethics, Religion and Society. He grew up in South Africa in great poverty in a Muslim single parent family, an experience that has had great influence on his vision of the world. He received a grant to study at a madrassa in Karachi in Pakistan, took his doctoral degree in Birmingham and followed a
postdoctoral program in Germany. Esack lectured at the University of the Western Cape, Hamburg and at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. In 1997 he was appointed by Nelson Mandela as Commissioner for Gender Equality. Esack is the author of Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism (1996), On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today (1999) and An Introduction to the Qur’an (2002).
WIN2005