Abdul Aziz Said

have fostered a positive, realistic and result-oriented attitude among them. But instead, under unwise leadership, they indulged in futile negative activities that proved to be counterproductive” [author’s translation].

After the mosque’s destruction, Khan embarked on an interfaith peace march through south India’s Maharashtra state.

In 2012, when the YouTube movie “Innocence of Muslims” ignited Muslim passions worldwide, he reminded Muslims that it’s better to ignore evil, citing Caliph Umar’s (radi Allahu ‘anh) that “kill a lie by keeping quiet about it.” Khan also recited 14:26: “An evil word is like an evil tree torn out of the earth; it has no foothold.”

And in his own way he succeeded. In an Al Risala article, he wrote that he was once invited to an interfaith gathering in Mumbai chaired by the then deputy prime minister LK Advani. Looking at the large crowd, he looked at his watch and asked if everyone would allow him to pray the Maghrib prayer, as it must be done in time. Advani nodded, and Khan prayed on the stage. He later reminisced that had been totally silent while he was praying. To him, this meant everyone had respected his prayer. This was the fearless, frank and honest scholar who respected other faiths and earned respect for himself.

He was listed in the “500 Most Influential Muslims” of the world; received the Demiurgus Peace International Award, under the patronage of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev; the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honor; the National Citizens’ Award, presented by Mother Teresa (2000); and the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award (2009). In January 2021 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor.

Khan also authored 200+ books on Islam, prophetic wisdom, spirituality and coexistence in a multi-ethnic society, as well on Islam’s relations with modernity and secularism. Among them are “Indian Muslims: The Need for a Positive Outlook,” “Islam Rediscovered: Discovering Islam from its Original Sources” and “The Issue of Blasphemy.”

He is survived by two sons and two daughters. ih

A Leading Peace Studies Scholar

1930-2021

Abdul Aziz Said (Al Ishak), PhD, director emeritus of the American University Center for Global Peace, died on Jan. 22 at his home in Washington, D.C.

The Syrian-born Said, whose father, a Nationalist [Orthodox] Christian member of parliament exiled by the French, spoke about resolving political conflicts without violence. His conviction can be traced back to his own grief brought on by his experience of living as a boy in a war zone.

In 1939, 9-year-old Said was living in a northeastern Syrian village as the country struggled against French occupation. One day he was playing soccer when a boy told him that his little brother was hurt. Said followed him to where 3-year-old Riyad, who had been fatally struck by a French military truck, lay bleeding in the street. Decades later, Said often told his students that he could still remember the taste of his brother’s blood in his mouth as he carried the body home.

In 1995 Said established the Center for Global Peace as part of American University’s School of International Service (SIS), the department where he taught international relations for 59 years until his retirement in 2015 — the university’s longest-serving tenured professor. A gifted and beloved teacher who attracted international students, his mentees included such peace activists and leaders as Germany’s Green Party founder Petra Kelly (SIS/BA ‘70).

In addition, Said created AU’s International Peace and Conflict Resolution master’s degree program (1995) and wrote or co-wrote 25 books, including “Islam and Peacemaking in the Middle East” (2008), “Toward a Global Community: Sufism and World Order” (2014), “Concepts of International Politics in Global Perspective” (co-authored with then-SIS dean Charles O. Lerche Jr., 1963) and “Ethnicity and U.S. Foreign Policy” (1977).

He became a go-to expert for U.S. ambassadors to Syria and Foreign Service officers with the State Department’s Near East Affairs Bureau. He served on the State Department’s Future of Iraq project (early 2000s), the White House Committee on the Islamic World (1980) and the boards of nearly three dozen organizations (e.g., the editorial boards of the Human Rights Quarterly journal and the International Journal of Nonviolence, as well as the board of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, a Washington-based research group).

After attending schools in Cairo and Beirut, Said came to Washington in 1950 to study at AU. A triple Eagle — SIS/BS ‘54, SIS/MA ‘55, SIS/ PhD ‘57, he became one of the original SIS faculty members. In 1996 he became the first holder of the Mohamed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace, an endowed university chair that focuses on the study of Islam and peace. Over the decades, he participated in civil rights marches and demonstrations against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid. In the late 1950s he served as the faculty adviser of an AU chapter of Phi Epsilon Pi, a fraternity started by Jewish students who had been excluded from other Greek organizations.

Sayyid M. Syeed, PhD, a former ISNA president, reminisced that even though Said was born a Christian, his appreciation and defense of Islam was strong. He was very supportive of Muslims and their constructive role in the U.S. and abroad. Syeed recalled that during the Iraq war, when Muslim stereotyping was rampant, Said took a stand and made a positive statement. He nursed the newly emerging discipline, conflict resolution, and Islam’s potential role in it.

In her remembrance, SIS Dean Christine BN Chin quotes Said, “Peace is not only an absence of violence, but a presence of justice, a presence of equality, and a presence of cooperation.”

Said’s marriages to Lucille Brousseau and Elizabeth Schmucker ended in divorce. In addition to his third wife of 37 years, Elena Turner (SIS/BA ‘82), survivors include son Riyad from his first marriage and son Jamil from his second marriage, along with six sisters, a brother and two grandchildren. ih

[Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/abdul-aziz-said-dead/2021/04/02/8eb8f904-93df11eb-bb49-5cb2a95f4cec_story.html; https://www.american.edu/sis/remembering-abdul-aziz-said.cfm]