Abdul-Rehman Malik is an award winning journalist, educator and cultural organizer. In June 2019 he was appointed Lecturer and Associate Research Scholar at the Yale Divinity School. He also serves at the Program Coordinator at Yale University’s Council on Middle East Studies, and is responsible for developing curricula and partnerships with public schools to promote better cultural, language and religious literacy about the Middle East to educators and students alike. Abdul-Rehman also serves as Director of the Muslim Leadership Lab, an innovative student leadership program being incubated at the Dwight Hall Center of Social Justice at Yale. He remains programs manager for the Radical Middle Way, which offers powerful, faith-inspired guidance and tools to enable change, combat exclusion and violence and promote social justice for all. His work has spanned the UK, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, Mali, Morocco, Singapore, Canada and Malaysia.
Abdul-Rehman is a frequent journalist for BBC Radio, offering contemporary perspectives on contemporary spirituality. Until 2018 regularly presented the popular Pause for Thought segment on Radio 2 and Something Understood on Radio 4. His most recent essay for Radio 3’s Holy Week 2019 was entitled “Behold the Man”. In conjunction with The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Abdul-Rehman will be launching and hosting a new podcast in 2020 entitled “This Being Human”, which will explore kaleidoscope of contemporary Muslim experience and identity.
ISM Director Martin Jean has performed widely throughout the United States and Europe and is known for his broad repertorial interests. He was awarded first place at the international Grand Prix de Chartres in 1986, and in 1992 at the National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance. A student of Robert Glasgow, in the fall of 1999 he spent a sabbatical with Harald Vogel in North Germany. He has performed on four continents and in nearly all fifty states. In 2001 he presented a cycle of the complete organ works of Bach at Yale, and his compact discs of The Seven Last Words of Christ by Charles Tournemire and the complete Six Symphonies of Louis Vierne, both recorded in Woolsey Hall, have been released by Loft Recordings. Recordings of the organ symphonies and Stations of the Cross of Marcel Dupré are forthcoming on the Delos label. Professor Jean is on the board of directors of Lutheran Music Program.
This conversation is part of a series of talks with ISM faculty and fellows done via Zoom while working from home in spring 2020.
