User:Childrenofheart
Omar Imady | |
|---|---|
 Omar Imady | |
| Born | 8 July 1966 Damascus, Syria |
| Nationality | Syrian - American |
| Occupation | Author |
Omar Imady (Template:Lang-ar; also transliterated Omar Imadi) is a Syrian American novelist, poet, and scholar who is presently the Deputy Director for Outreach of the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews. Imady's novel The Gospel of Damascus, published in April 2012, has been translated to French (Edilivre, April, 2014) and is presently being translated into Arabic and Spanish.
Early life
Imady was born in 1966 in Damascus to an American mother (Mildred Elaine Rippey), from Palisades, New York, and a Syrian father (Muhammad Imady). His parents met at New York University in 1956, and were married shortly after. Imady's mother is a published author. His father, a non-Bathist technocrat, is the longest serving Minister of Economy in modern Syria. Imady moved to Kuwait at the age of thirteen when his father became the President of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.
Education (1984-1993)
In 1984, Imady graduated from high school and enrolled in Maclaester College, a liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. In March, 1986, Imady was married to Tamara L. Gray. In May, 1988, Imady graduated from Maclaester College, majoring in Middle East Studies. Subsequently, he moved with his family to Philadelphia where he enrolled in the graduate program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Pennsylvania (since changed to Arabic & Islamic Studies). He obtained his MA in 1990, and his Ph.D in December 1993, working with several Penn Scholars including Roger Allen, George Makdisi, and Thomas Naff. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on how the institutions of civil society in Muslim countries evolved over the period (1871-1949).
UN Career (1994-2004)
Imady returned to Damascus in December 1993, and in March 1994 joined the United Nations Development Program in Damascus as a National Program Office and Head of the Program Support Unit. Abdullah Dardari had joined the UNDP a few months earlier as a National Program Officer and Head of the Program Unit, and together they helped design and oversee several important development projects in Syria. induing a microfiannce project known as Community Development at Jabal al-Hoss. When Dardari left his position at UNDP in December 1997 for a job in the Arab Monetary Bank, Imady took on his responsibilities, and in February, 2000 was promoted to the position of Assistant Resident representative. In April 2001, Imady opted to leave his post at UNDP and to work instead as a freelance UN consultant, focusing primarmrly on poverty alleviation programs through culturally consistent microfinance programs. The model he designed in partnership with Dr. Hans-Dieter Seibel became a regional pilot program and was replicated in Jordan and Lebanon.
NYIT (2004-2012)
Disillusioned by how the Syrian government was interacting with development initiatives, Imady left Syrian in 2004 and joined the New York Institute of technology in Amman, the only American University in Jordan during that period, as an Assistant Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. In March 2008, he was promoted to an Associate Professor, and in September 2008, he was appointed as the Campus Dean or the highest academic authority at NYIT Amman.
St Andrews (2012 - present)
By 2012, Syrians working in Jordan began to sense a change in the professional context they were accustomed to, and by June 2012 Imady decided to move to the UK where he joined the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews, first as a Senior Fellow (November 2012), and subsequently as the Deputy Director for Outreach and Information `Dissemination (November 2013).
The Gospel of Damascus
Imady's attraction to Sufism began still a child after his sister, Susan Sahar Imady, joined the Qubasis, a Damascene female naqishbandi order founded by Shaikha Munira al-Qubaisi. It wasn't until he met Shaikh Bashir al-bank (1911-2008) in December 1985, however that his formal Sufi education began. Bashir al-Bani was the Orator of the Grand Mosque of Damascus, and the right hand of Shaikh Ahmad Kuftaro, both once students of Shaikh Amin Kuftaro, and important masters of the naqishbandi order in Damascus. Bani was also the uncle of Imady's brother-in-law, Dr. Owais Tarakji, and it was through this connection that their initial encounter took place. In the summer of 1990, and by the initiative of Bashir al-bank, Imady was formally initiated into the naqishbandi order by Shaikh Ahmad Kuftaro, a spiritual ritual which permits the spiritual novice to practice zikr or God-focused spiritual meditation. After Bani died in August 2008, Imady began writing The Gospel of Damascus which was meant to articulate, through a fictionalized autobiography, the vision of Islam which Bashir al-bank privately shared with Imady. Bani believed that the world had now entreated the very early phases of the ends of time and that a very dramatic change in how Muslim understood their faith was necessary. It is this vision of a reformist spiritual Islam which Imady includes in his novel.
References
Omar Imady Biography & CV The Gospel of Damascus L'Evangile de Damas Road to Damascus