Speech Title: Challenges to Muslim Identity Vis a Vis Faith & Culture. 

Imam Dr. Abdul Hai Patel is a distinguished Imam, scholar, and community leader with over 56 years of service in Canada. He is the founder and past Coordinator of the Canadian Council of Imams and currently serves as Director of Interfaith Relations.

Imam Dr. Patel has held numerous leadership and advisory roles, including President of the Canadian Multifaith Federation, Trustee of the Toronto District School Board, Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and member of the Interfaith Advisory Committee of the federal government’s Correctional Service of Canada.

He has served extensively in chaplaincy, including as Muslim Chaplain at the University of Toronto and York Regional Police, visiting Chaplain at CAMH, Chaplain at Whitby Mental Health Centre, and consultant to hospitals and correctional facilities. He is a member of the Canadian Association of Police Chaplains and has advised the Toronto Police Service for 38 years.

Imam Dr. Patel has also contributed nationally as a past member of the National Board of Governors of Scouts Canada and provincially as a member of the Ontario Law Commission’s advisory committee on end-of-life care. Since 2015, he has served on the City of Toronto’s Seniors Strategy Planning Table.

Speech Title: Deep approach to Hizmet Education: identity building through project based learning as an impact to society.

Dr. Zuleyha Mary Fikret is a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Turkish and Ottoman Studies Program in the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department at Columbia University. Educated in both Turkey and the United States, she earned her B.A. in Arabic Language and Literature from Istanbul University, followed by two M.A. degrees—one in Arabic Literature from Marmara University and another in Central Eurasian Studies (Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies) from Indiana University. She completed her Ph.D. in Ottoman Language and Literature at Indiana University with a dissertation on the portrayal of women in the Biblical and Qur’anic Joseph narratives in Ottoman literature.

Dr. Fikret has taught at Indiana University and the University of Minnesota and has served at Columbia University since 2010. Her teaching spans Islamic studies, literature, and language, including Qur’anic narratives, Islamic spirituality, Sufism, women in Islam, and Turkish and Ottoman language courses from elementary to advanced levels.

Speech Title: How Muslim Identity Fails or Flourishes: Hadith Methodology as Ethical Framework for Artificial Intelligence Interaction

Dr. Bilal W. D. Ansari is a distinguished Islamic scholar, educator, and pastoral leader serving as Director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program and Associate Professor of Practice at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace in Connecticut, USA. He also co-directs the Master of Arts in Chaplaincy and brings decades of experience in chaplaincy, pastoral theology, and institutional leadership to his work. Dr. Ansari holds a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) in Pastoral Counseling from the Pacific School of Religion and completed his graduate studies in Islamic Chaplaincy and Islamic Studies at Hartford International University. His scholarship emphasizes Islamic pastoral care, Muslim chaplaincy formation, contemporary Islamic ethics, and institutional leadership. Before his current role, he served as the first Muslim chaplain at Williams College and later as Assistant Vice President for Campus Engagement and Director of the Davis Center, where he led initiatives in diversity, equity, and community engagement. He also served as Dean of Students at Zaytuna College during its initial accreditation phase.

Dr. Ansari’s professional chaplaincy experience spans military, correctional, and educational institutions, and his publications and presentations address pastoral theology, Muslim spiritual care, interreligious dialogue, and chaplaincy practice.

Speech Title: Digital Ahklak: A Nursian Framework for Morality in the Digital Age.

Dr. Zeki Saritoprak is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and Director of the Bediuzzaman Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at John Carroll University. A native of Turkey, he has devoted more than thirty years to the study of Islamic theology, mysticism, and interfaith dialogue.

Dr. Saritoprak earned his Ph.D. in Islamic Theology from University of Marmara and has authored over fifty academic articles and encyclopedia entries, in addition to several influential books. His publications include Islam’s Jesus (2014) and Islamic Spirituality (2019). He is currently working on a book on Islamic eschatology.

Speech Title: The character the Quran expects of a believer.

Dr. Shabir Ally is a Guyanese-Canadian Islamic scholar known for his work in Qur’anic studies and interfaith dialogue. As of 2020, he serves as President of the Islamic Information & Dawah Centre International in Toronto.

Dr. Ally is widely recognized for promoting a contextual interpretation of Qur’anic verses, often engaging in comparative analysis by highlighting parallel expressions and themes within the Christian Bible. Through his scholarship and public outreach, he seeks to foster deeper understanding of Islam and meaningful dialogue between faith traditions.

Speech Title: The foundations of Muslim identity according to Fethullah Gülen.

Dr. Muhammed Cetin is a Professor of Sociology and a language instructor in the General Education Department at a North American university in Texas. He earned his master’s degree from University of Leicester and his PhD in Sociology from University of Derby. His academic and administrative career includes roles as Lecturer, Vice Rector, and Ministerial Adviser in Turkmenistan, as well as Visiting Scholar appointments in the Sociology Department at University of Texas at Austin and the Religious Studies Department at University of Houston.

Dr. Cetin served in a voluntary capacity as President and later Publications Coordinator of the Institute of Interfaith Dialog, organizing and speaking at numerous interfaith conferences and cultural programs. He also wrote weekly columns for the international daily Today’s Zaman and taught sociology at East Stroudsburg University.

He is the author and producer of the documentary DVDs Rumi and Universal Love and Dialogue and Call to Prayer, and the author of several books, including The Gülen Movement: Civic Service without Borders, Hizmet: Questions and Answers on the Gülen Movement, and Turkey’s Path to Democratization: Barriers, Actors, Outcomes, translated into multiple languages.

From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Cetin served as a Member of Parliament for Istanbul, where he was Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He has authored numerous academic book chapters and journal articles.

Albert Frolov is a PhD candidate at the Toronto School of Theology (University of Toronto) and a Research Fellow at the Lonergan Research Institute (Regis College). He is also a Lecturer at Respect Graduate School (Pennsylvania). His work focuses on comparative theology and philosophy of religion, especially Islam–Christianity dialogue, religious-mystical experience, and religious epistemology, developing a comparative framework between Bediüzzaman Said Nursi and Bernard Lonergan.