Akbar S. Ahmed - Distinctions and Distinguished Lectures

Distinctions and Distinguished Lectures

• Awarded the Star of Excellence, one of Pakistan’s highest honors.
• Awarded Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in London.
• In 2005 the National Cathedral held a special Evensong Service to honor Ahmed.
• First Annual Bridge Builder’s Award, Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington.
• Humanitarian Award, the highest honor of the Chapel of Four Chaplains.
• The Professor of the Year Award for Washington DC by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (2004)
• The first Gandhi Center Fellowship of Peace Award.
• Invited to join the World Wisdom Council.
• Delivered the keynote address at the annual conference of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions at Monterrey, Mexico, September 23, 2007.
• Joined the Global Advisory Council of PlayPumps International (2008).
• Centennial Honorary Chair of the Washington National Cathedral Centennial Celebration (along with Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor).
• Trustee since 2001 of the World Faiths Development Dialogue set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the president of the World Bank.
• Trustee on the Board of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.
• Founding member of the First Abrahamic Summit, Washington DC, and continues to be a member of the Abrahamic Roundtable, organized by the National Cathedral.
• Board of Directors, Hollings Center, and member, Abrahamic Program Advisory Committee, Chautauqua Institution.
• Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Hasan Family Foundation
• Senior Fellow of The Case Foundation.
• Spoke at the Chairman’s Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series at the Pentagon.
• Inaugural lectures for the first Chair in Jewish-Muslim Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
• Along with Ambassador Doug Holladay founded the Buxton Initiative for Dialogue.
• Lectured at a World Affairs Council event along with Dick Cheney, Dr. Henry Kissinger and Bernard Lewis.
• Member of the host committee for Internews’ 25th anniversary celebration in May 2007.
• First muslim to lecture at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
• Principal investigator for Islam in the Age of Globalization, a project supported by the Brookings Institution, American University and the Pew Research Center, and visiting fellow at Brookings in addition to his appointment at American University.
• Along with Dr. Judea Pearl delivered the keynote address at the Greater Kansas City Festival of Faiths in the Village Church November 2007.
• Keynote address at a conference on The Way Forward at the Centre for Muslim-Jewish Relations, Cambridge.
• Keynote address at the 60th Anniversary of the Independence of India and Pakistan, hosted by the University of Southampton.
• Special lecture at the London School of Economics and invited as an expert to address the All-Parties Committee on Terrorism at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in the summer of 2007.
• Keynote at the Drury University, convention series, 2007-08.
• McMurrrin Lecture in Religion and Culture, University of Utah, Tanner Humanities Center, 2008-09.
• President's Distinguished Lecture at the University of Vermont in 2008.
• Recommended speaker of the World Affairs Council of America.
• One of the 138 Muslim leaders who write to the Pope and other christian leaders suggesting dialogue and one of the original signatories of the Muslim letter to Jewish leaders circulated in 2008.
• Led a Muslim delegation to the Holocaust Museum in December 2006.
• Attended President Ford's funeral ceremony at the National Cathedral where he was part of the "Procession Order" as "Representative of Faith" escorting the casket, and delivered the invocation at the Mayor’s Inaugural Prayer Service in Washington DC.
• Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings.
• Given the Key to the city of Houston and Portland, Maine, by the respective Mayors.
• Member of the Incident Management Team for the Department of Homeland Security.
• Mentioned in “Congressional Record – Proceedings and Debates of the 109th Congress, Second Session, Washington, Friday, September 29, 2006, House of Representatives: Tribute to Dr. Judea Pearl and Dr. Akbar Ahmed”.
• Along with Dr. Judea Pearl, Ahmed was finalist in the “Most Inspiring Person of the Year 2005” poll conducted by BeliefNet.
• Awarded the first ever Purpose Prize Award in 2006.
• Honored at the National Cathedral in the fall.
• Received the 2008 Rumi Peace and Dialogue Award.
• Awarded the annual Abraham Joshua Herschel-Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Interfaith Activism on January 19, 2009, Park Avenue Christian Church, New York.