Lectures, seminars, panels, advisory
Speaking
He has taught these subjects to graduate and undergraduate students in four countries and has presented at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The topics below are grounded in courses he has taught, books he has written, and published scholarship listed on this site.
Five talks
Topics
Provenance: talk summaries are editorial syntheses of Professor al-Ahsan’s published work and teaching record; they are not quotations. Discussion and teaching aids are labeled separately.
-
Dialogue or Clash: What the Record Actually Shows
A direct response to Huntington and Bernard Lewis, built from the history of Muslim and European contact rather than from prediction. The talk develops an alternative framework from his published work on Muslim-European contact, dialogue, and civilizational conflict.
-
Rise and Fall: How Civilizations Come Apart
The four-link argument in full, run forward and then inverted. Suited to a general or undergraduate audience, and to leadership groups thinking about institutional decline.
-
Human Dignity Before Law: Reading the Cairo Declaration
What happens when a human rights instrument is written by states rather than for persons. Based on his study in the Journal of Law and Religion and his two volumes with Stephen B. Young.
-
The OIC at Fifty and After
A four-decade institutional history from someone who has tracked the organization since 1988, covering conflict resolution, the Rohingya crisis and the limits of collective Muslim diplomacy.
-
Eurocentrism and the Method of History
For history departments and graduate seminars: how the discipline's default vantage point determines what counts as evidence, and what a working alternative method looks like.
Suggested formats
Ways to frame a request
These are request formats, not a guarantee of availability; scope and timing are confirmed case by case.
- Single public lecture, 45 to 60 minutes with discussion
- Graduate seminar or masterclass, 90 minutes
- Panel contribution or respondent
- Multi-session short course
- Press interview and background briefing
- Editorial board, advisory board and manuscript review
- Remote or in-person format may be requested; availability is confirmed case by case.
Where he has spoken and taught
Venues
- Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, 2008
- Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center, University of St. Thomas, 2008
- International Islamic University Malaysia, 1990 to 2017
- Istanbul Şehir University, 2018 to 2020
- International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, ISTAC
- Virginia Theological Seminary, visiting professor
- Dawah Academy, International Islamic University Islamabad
- Center for Islam and Global Affairs, full seminar 2019
- International Peace Coalition, a Schiller Institute initiative, panel 2026
- Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism, ongoing fellowship
Contact
Send an invitation
Use this form for speaking, media, seminar, and institutional requests.
Useful things to include: the date or window, the audience and roughly how many people, whether it is in person or remote, and what you want the audience to walk away with.
One-page sheet for a programming committee
al-ahsan-one-sheet.pdf
His email address is not published on the site. Use the form to initiate contact.