12/7/2023 0 Comments Rough draft with reza aslanIn 2005, The Guardian called him "a Shia by persuasion". He converted to evangelical Christianity at the age of 15, and converted back to Islam the summer before attending Harvard. Religious viewsĪslan was born into a Twelver Shia Muslim family. He also serves on the board of trustees for the Chicago Theological Seminary and is on the advisory board of the Yale Humanist Community. Aslan also serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues, PEN Center USA, a writer's advocacy group, and he serves on the national advisory board of The Markaz (formerly the Levantine Cultural Center), a program to promote peace between Americans and the Arab/Muslim world. He has served as Legislative Assistant for the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington D.C., and was elected President of Harvard's Chapter of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. Īn Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2012 to 2013, he is also a member of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Īslan was the 2012–13 Wallerstein Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Drew University Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict. In August 2000, while serving as the Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Aslan was a visiting faculty member in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa. His 2009 dissertation, "Global Jihadism as a Transnational Social Movement: A Theoretical Framework", discusses contemporary Muslim political activism. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. in religious studies from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) from Harvard Divinity School, a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in fiction writing from the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, and a Ph.D. In the early 1990s, Aslan taught courses at De La Salle High School in Concord, California.Īslan holds a B.A. He attended Del Mar High School in San Jose, and graduated class of 1990. Aslan says that he "spent the 1980s pretending to be Mexican" due to the amount of discrimination faced by Iranian Americans. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a professor of creative writing at University of California, Riverside, and a board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).Īslan's family came to the United States from Tehran in 1979, fleeing the Iranian Revolution. Aslan is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the International Qur'anic Studies Association. He has written four books on religion: No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and God: A Human History.Īslan has worked for television, including a documentary series exploring world religions on CNN called Believer, and serving as an executive producer on the HBO drama series The Leftovers. A convert to evangelical Christianity from Shia Islam as a youth, Aslan eventually reverted to Islam but continued to write about Christianity. Gotham’s varied experience in journalism, publishing, and entertainment had him identified by Newsweek Magazine as one of the “most powerful and influential” South Asians worth watching.Reza Aslan ( Persian: رضا اصلان, IPA: born May 3, 1972) is an Iranian-American scholar of sociology of religion, writer, and television host. As a former journalist, Gotham reported from countless warzones and interviewed a wide range of global leaders – from President Clinton to the Dalai Lama giving him a unique worldview. Gotham is also behind the feature film Decoding Deepak about his father, spiritual guru Deepak Chopra. Chopra’s past TV credits include multiple ESPN projects and his critically acclaimed documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse, which was the highest performing sports documentary ever on the Showtime Network. He’s also currently working on TV projects with both LeBron James and Ronda Rousey. Most recently, along with NFL icons Tom Brady and Michael Strahan, he created and launched the original documentary series The Religion of Sports, which was just renewed for a second season and will air later this year. Gotham Chopra is a filmmaker, author, and entrepreneur.
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