Nurani: A Walk Through of Meedan's Inter-faith Scriptural Study Site
We are proud to announce the first release of Nurani, a platform for cross-language scriptural discussion for Muslim and Christian scholars managed by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme at the University of Cambridge, a programme of the Faculty of Divinity. Nurani is a cross-language open source platform for inter-religious dialogue developed by Meedan. The goal is to facilitate improved understanding between different faith communities and between speakers of Arabic and English. Nurani achieves this by enabling users to share and discuss scriptural and commentary texts from their faith traditions in two... Read The Rest →
UK Research Grant supports Meedan web service to improve communication between religions
Meedan’s Nurani platform – a digital project to develop online dialogues between Muslims, Christians and Jews – has won a prestigious UK Research Councils’ grant worth $450,000. Developed with our partners at the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme and the Coexist Foundation, Nurani is a pioneering web service that enables cross-language discussions between religious leaders, scholars and civic groups in Arabic and English. The research grant, which is part of the highly competitive Digital Economy Programme, will support the creation of the world’s first inter-faith library of religious texts and the further... Read The Rest →
Questions the London Conference on Libya didn't ask: Notes from Belief in Dialogue forum
Most eyes in London were on Lancaster House today as Hillary Clinton joined foreign secretaries from around the world to talk about an international response to Libya. But just a stone’s throw away overlooking the Mall in the magnificent building of the British Academy, a different, but perhaps no less important, conversation was underway. The Belief in Dialogue symposium brought together scientists, theologians, political historians, policy people, and inter-faith practitioners to thrash out a model of the way in which religious and secular forms of knowledge and practice can coexist.... Read The Rest →
Meedan Developers head to Cambridge
As the sole London-based member of Meedan’s far flung team (we have developers in Damascus, Amman, San Francisco and Portland, not to mention our team of editors and translators across the Middle East), I was glad to have some company last week when some of my colleagues dropped in for a visit. The occasion was a two-day gathering at the University of Cambridge with the academic partners behind our inter-faith project. We are working on a multi-year project with the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme to develop cross-language approaches to inter-faith study... Read The Rest →
Lessons of Scriptural Reasoning for cross-cultural dialogue
Earlier this year, I was invited to sit in on a theological gathering at Cambridge University. With few expectations about what I was to experience, I turned up on the first morning armed with a pen and paper, and a cup of fresh coffee. Over three intense days, I watched scholars from as far afield as Asia, North America, the Middle East and Russia pour over passages of scripture in small mixed faith groups. Although the academic surroundings were familiar to me, I was to be exposed to a form... Read The Rest →
Meedan to build religious dialogue platform with Cambridge Inter-faith Programme
Meedan has partnered with the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme to develop an online platform for inter-faith discussion. We aim to produce a world-class, high-impact, web-based platform to aid discussion and promote understanding between leading figures in the Abrahamic Faiths. We envision a universally accessible resource for government, the press, educational institutions and the general public. We aim to build a ‘first port of call’ for inter-faith comment, analysis and discussion. The platform has two elements, each of which addresses a significant challenge to media designed for the web: (1) It will... Read The Rest →