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BIOGRAPHY |
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Nabeel T. Jabbour was born in Syria, grew up in Lebanon, and is now an American citizen. He received his bachelor's degree from the American University of Beirut and a master's degree from the Near East School of Theology, which is also in Beirut, Lebanon. He taught high school for two years in Lebanon, Tripoli then taught Psychology and Cultural Studies (History of Civilizations) for two more years at Haigazian University in Beirut. In 1972 he left his teaching profession and joined the staff of the Navigators and has been with The Navigators since then. In 1975, before the civil war in Lebanon, he moved to Cairo, Egypt with his family and lived there until the end of 1990. From 1987 to 1990 he studied Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism. He earned a doctorate by correspondence from the University of South Africa in Pretoria. His method of study was phenomenology. He did not want to project his prejudice on Islam and come to predetermined conclusions. In the process he learned to stand in the shoes of Muslims and to see Islam through their eyes. Based on his dissertation he has written a book on Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt, The Rumbling Volcano. About eighty percent of his references were from Muslim sources in Arabic. Cairo was the best city in the world for such a study because it is the intellectual capital of Islam. Furthermore other than Khoumainy (Iran), Mawdoudi (Pakistan) and Abdul Wahab (Saudi Arabia), most of the Islamic Fundamentalist pillars are Egyptians or are influenced by Egyptians. Osama Ben Laden was influenced by and recruited to Fundamentalism by Egyptians and Palestinians who had their roots in the "Muslim Brotherhood" of Egypt. Ayman Zawahiri, the physician and the number two man in al Qa’ida is an Egyptian. The Jabbours moved to the United States in January 1991. In his travels, Dr. Jabbour has visited most of the Islamic countries in the world. Because he has lived in the States he has come to understand both worlds -- the Arab and Muslim world, and the American and Christian world. He has learned to interpret the "strange" phenomena of Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism to people in the West and especially to Christians. In one of the two intensive week-long graduate courses that he teaches at seminaries, he has asked his students to write a course paper on this topic: "Suppose the office of the Secretary of State asked you to write a a 4,000 word proposal for our policy on Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, what would you say?" On September 11, when Dr. Jabbour heard the news, he was angry and shocked but not surprised. He has known since 1991, that Islamic Fundamentalists would strike, but he was shocked by the magnitude of the attack and by how evil it was. |
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