Four foreign experts on Islam to attend ACIS 2007 Riau

Jakarta, NU Online
Four foreign experts on Islam will attend the 7th Annual Conference on Islamic Studies (ACIS) to be held in Pekanbaru, Riu province, on November 21-24, 2007, an official said.

"The four foreign experts who will attend the conference are Mark Woodward of Arizona State University, Ronald Lukens Bull of the University of North Florida, Peter Suwarno of Arizona State University and Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid of Leiden University of the Netherlands," Director of Higher Islamic Education at the  Religious Affairs Ministry, Abdurrahman Mas’ud, said here on Monday.<>

He was quoted by the state news agency as saying that all of the four foreigners would be speakers at the conference.

Speakers from Indonesia would include Azyumardi Azra of  Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta, Director General for Labor Affairs Fasli Jalal, Dewi Fortuna Anwar of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and Solahuddin Wahid of the Tebu Ireng Islamic Boarding School in Jombang, East Java.

"The 7th conference is to be held to keep abreast of  developments in  Islamic studies and thinking in Indonesia in the framework of providing contributions and solutions to problems faced by mankind in the third millennium," Abdurrahman said.

He said besides formulating contributions and solutions to problems faced by the Islamic world, the conference was also expected to establish an "ACIS 2007 Corner" in  the Sultan Syarif Kasim UIN’s liberary in Pekanbaru, Riau. (nam)