Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism

Zayn Kassam  is the John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, CA.  The winner of three Wig Awards for Distinguished Teaching, she has also won the national American Academy of Religion award for Excellence in Teaching and the Theta Alpha Kappa Kathleen Connolly-Weinart Leader of the Year Award. Kassam has authored a volume on Islam (Greenwood Press, 2005), and also edited a volume titled  Women and Islam  (2010).  She has published articles on religion and migration, on pedagogy, feminist Muslim hermeneutics, and Muslim Women and globalization. Her current research investigates contemporary challenges facing Muslim women.  She teaches courses on women in Islam, Islamic mysticism, Islamic thought, as well as contemporary Muslim literature.  More recently, she has also been teaching courses on religion and the environment. 

Dr. Kassam's service to the profession includes serving on American Academy of Religion national steering committees for the Study of Islam; Childhood Studies in Religion; Liberal Theologies; Religion and Migration; and the Islam, Gender, Women Group. She is also a board member for the highly acclaimed Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion , as well as a consulting editor on  Twentieth Century Religious Thought: Vol II, Islam .

Yudit Kornberg Greenberg  is the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Endowed Chair of Religion and Founding Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Her fields of teaching and research include modern and contemporary Jewish thought, comparative religion, women and religion, and cross-cultural views of love and the body.  Dr. Greenberg is the author of  Better than Wine: Love, Poetry and Prayer in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig,  the 2 volume  Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions,  nominated for the American Academy of Religion Book award for 2009 ,  and editor of  From Spinoza to Levinas: Hermeneutical, Ethical, and Political Issues in Modern and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy .    She has written numerous articles and essays in modern and contemporary Jewish thought, and in comparative Hinduism and Judaism. Her current projects include  Body in Religion: Cross-cultural Perspectives , Bloomsbury Publishers, 2016 ,  and  Hindu and Jewish Philosophy and Religion: Comparative Perspectives , Lexington Books, 2016.

Dr. Greenberg lectures nationally and internationally on topics related to love and the body. She has been active at numerous scholarly societies and organizations such as the Association for Jewish Studies, the Parliament of the Worlds Religions, the Franz Rosenzweig International Society, and the American Academy of Religion, where she served as co-chair of the Studies in Judaism Section and the Comparative Study of Judaisms and Hinduisms Group. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and is General Editor of  Studies in Judaism Series  for Peter Lang Academic Publishers. Dr. Greenberg is a recipient of numerous awards including two Fulbright Scholar Awards; the Cornell distinguished Faculty Award and the Arthur Vining Davis Award from Rollins College, the Templeton Course Prize in Science and Religion, and the Harvard University Pluralism Project grant. She is an annual summer fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem and was a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in 2015 at Jindal Global University in India.

Jehan Bagli  is an ordained Zoroastrian priest through Navar and Murtab ceremonies. He was a founding member and President of Zoroastrian Association of Quebec, the editor of  Gavashni,  a North American Zarathushti publication, for 16 years (1974-1990), and founding editor of  FEZANA   journal (1988-90). Heis immediate past president of North American Mobed Council (NAMC). Presently, he is the Chairperson of the Research and Preservation Committee of Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, (FEZANA), and the International Board member of World Zoroastrian Organization.

 He has lectured extensively on numerous religious topics at various conferences and symposia. These include North American Zoroastrian Congresses at Toronto, Chicago, California, Vancouver, and Philadelphia and at various Anjumans in N.America. He was also invited by Zoroastrian organizations to give lectures in India, Pakistan, Australia and South Africa.

He has published widely, on various topics, on the religion of Zarathushtra. He is the author/co-author of five books. “Religion of Asho Zarathusht and Influence through The Ages” (2003), and co-author of “Understanding and Practice of Jashan Ceremony” (2001), “Understanding and Practice of Obsequies” (2006), Congregational prayers (2007), “Understanding and Practice of Navjote and wedding ceremonies (2010) and Understanding and Practice of Concise Naavar ceremony (2014).  Most recently he has been the author of ‘Zoroastrian Theology and Eschatology’ as well as the section editor for ‘Zoroastrian Religion’ for the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions to be published by Springer publications.

Professionally he is retired Distinguished Research Fellow of Wyeth/Ayrest Pharmaceutical  Research, and is currently a  Research Consultant.

He was a recipient of the Gold Medal of Indian Pharmaceutical Association, of   the fellowships from the U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. National Institute of Health, and of the National Research Council of Canada. He also received the award of Excellence in Profession/Business from Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, recognized by ZSO, ZAQ, ZAGNY and is an elected fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada.