Salam mourns the loss of Advisory Council member Dr. Ali Mazrui - one of Africas towering intellectuals, a compassionate father, a prolific writer, an eloquent orator, and imminent journalist and scholar. Mazrui passed away last Monday, October 13, and was buried in his family graveyard in Kenya yesterday. Professor Mazruis childhood ambitions to follow in the steps of his father and become a jurist in Islamic law were frustrated by his fathers death at the age of 14 and his poor test results. While working at the Mombasa Institute of Muslim Educatoin, Mazrui gave a speech in celebration of Projphet Mohammeds birthday, which earned him a scholarship to finish his secondary and higher education in the U.K. Professor Mazrui went on to earn an M.A. from Columbia University in 1961 and his doctorate from Oxford University in 1966 after wich he joined Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he served as head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. After taking exile in 1973 during Idi Amins reign, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan, Binghamton University, and finally the State University of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS). He also held three concurrent appointments at the University of Jos in Nigeria, Cornell University, and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, in Nairobi. In 2005, Professor Mazrui was selected as the 73rd topmost intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals. Mazruis research interests included African politics, international political culture, political Islam and North-South relations. He is author or co-author of more than twenty books. Mazrui has also published hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and for public media. He has also served on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals. Mazrui was widely consulted by heads of states and governments, international media and research institutions for political strategies and alternative thoughts. Professor Mazrui commented, often critically, on the accepted orthodoxies of African intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s, the current capitalist system, and most recently Islam and Islamism. Mazrui was the creator of the television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage - described by People Magazine as one of the most controversial series ever seen on American television. the-star.co.ke/news/article-194561/scholars-and-leaders-pay-tribute-prof-ali-mazrui
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:31:28 +0000
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