Indonesian foreign minister to address radical Islam

Dr. Alwi Shihab, Indonesia’s presidential envoy to the Middle East and former minister of foreign affairs, will address the global challenges of radical Islam in a lecture March 24 at the University of South Carolina.

The lecture, “The Global Challenges of Islamic Radicalism: The Indonesian Perspective,” will take place at 3:30 p.m. in Room 855 of the Moore School of Business. It is free and open to the public.

An internationally acclaimed expert on Islam, Shihab is author of the recent book, Examining Islam in the West. He is a member of the advisory board of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and earned doctoral degrees from the University of Ain Shams in Cairo, Egypt, and Temple University.

Shihab is visiting South Carolina as part of a delegation of distinguished officials who will meet with officials at the University of South Carolina to discuss potential collaborations, especially with the university’s Center for Colon Cancer Research. Also in the group are Dr. de Soz Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri, rector of the University of Indonesia, and professor Prativi Pujilestari Sudharmono, vice dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Indonesia.

The lecture is sponsored by the university’s Walker Institute for International and Area Studies. For more information about this and other Walker Institute events, visit the Web site: http://www.cas.sc.edu/iis/