Topeka, Kan. – Professor Cyrus Zargar will present “Muslim Encounters with the Christian Other in Persian Sufi Poetry” during Washburn University’s annual Thomas L. King Lecture. The lecture is Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Washburn Rooms A and B in the Memorial Union on the Washburn University campus. This event is free and open to the public.
Zargar is the Al-Ghazali Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida. He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California-Berkeley, and he uses a wide range of research methods to study mysticism within Islam.
Zargar’s first book, “Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn ‘Arabi and ‘Iraqi,” argues that Sufi theories about perception and beauty are essential to understanding medieval Sufi poetry. His second book, “The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism,”uses the lens of virtue ethics to understand medieval Sufi narrative. Zargar’s work is distinguished by its keen perception for the common humanity that lies beneath the multifaceted ways that human religions (like Islam) cultivate experiences of transcendence.
The Thomas L. King Lecture in Religious Studies was established by a gift from the First Congregational Church of Topeka from funds donated in memory of Thomas L. King, an alumnus and benefactor of Washburn. The purpose of the lectureship is to foster a greater understanding of religion within the larger context of the humanities.
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