By Rachel Konieczny
News Editor
Several Olean and Allegany community members donated nearly $70,000 to the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies for ongoing instruction and outreach.
The donation included contributions from Adil and Jehan Al-Humadi, Mohaned Al-Humadi, John and Wardia Hart, Akbar and Nisreen Firdosy, Zahid and Durriya Khairullah, Donald and Mary Swanz and the Islamic Society of the Southern Tier.
Fr. Michael Calabria, O.F.M., Ph.D. and director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, said the donations began last semester.
Calabria said the donations will be used for four different areas that the center will develop, including on-campus and off-campus instruction, scholarship and outreach to the Muslim community, as well as developing a lecture series and covering the cost of in-house publications.
“The inspiration for the center is really a Franciscan one and so our inspiration is specifically the encounter of Saint Francis with the Sultan during the fifth crusade in 1219, which by all accounts was a friendly one rather than a hostile encounter, which is the way the Christian world had been engaging with the Muslim world,” Calabria said.
Calabria said it is important for students to be cognizant of Arab culture.
“Clearly in today’s global environment it’s important for students across the country and around the world to be familiar with the Arab world and with Islam as a religion and the cultures that are predominantly Muslim because they’re a significant part of our global environment,” Calabria said.
Calabria began teaching at Bonaventure in 2003 and left in 2012 to finish his doctoral degree. Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., university president, contacted him during that time about expanding the Arabic language program into the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Calabria said. From these conversations, the center formed in 2015.
“Some people might point to war or terrorism and I understand that’s a concern of people, but the center is not a reaction,” Calabria said. “The center was not formed as a reaction to geopolitics. It’s a recognition that Arab and Islamic Studies are an important component of a liberal arts education and to be an educated person in today’s world you need to be much more familiar with the world’s cultures, with world religions and with language.”
Erik Furgal, a junior international relations and Spanish major, said he enjoys learning Arabic and hopes to gain insight into the Middle Eastern region concerning culture, language, religion, history and politics.
“The Arab and Islamic Studies Center has not only benefited from the donations themselves, but also from the support that these donations imply,” Furgal said. “I think the center can use the discussion generated by this donation as a way to initiate conversation with those who are skeptical of the program. Through this dialogue, perhaps those skeptics can recognize the ways in which the Arab and Islamic Studies center is benefitting our student body and the St. Bonaventure community.”
koniecrc14@bonaventure.edu
