Sajida Alvi

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Dr Sajida S. Alvi (born 1941) is a female academic of Pakistani origin in Canada. She is a historian of Islam in India.

She moved to Canada in January, 1967 as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. She accepted a teaching position at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, in 1972; taught there for five years and then moved to the University of Minnesota in 1977. After receiving tenure and promotion at the University of Minnesota, she returned to McGill University in 1986. She is the first appointee to an endowed Chair in Urdu Language and Culture (funded by the Government of Pakistan, Department of Multiculturalism, Government of Canada and McGill University), and is a Professor of Indo-Islamic History at McGill University. Over the last almost 40 years, she has served the larger Canadian host community and Muslim community as an educator and scholar.

A hallmark of Dr. Alvi’s career as an educator is that she passionately pursued her academic career in the U.S. and Canada, published and offered courses (primarily at graduate level) covering medieval and modern Indo-Islamic history; political thought, religion and politics; Islam; Sufism, Islamic renewal and reform in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. At the same time, she served the Muslim and larger community by publishing, giving public lectures on Islam, aspects of Islamic civilization and women’s issues (in Canada and the US). Over the last almost two decades, she has been working closely working closely with the Canadian Council of Muslim Women regarding women’s issues. As well, she worked with various Boards of Education in Ontario to support and enhance the instruction of heritage languages programs with special reference to Urdu with funding from the Department of Multiculturalism.

As a scholar, Dr. Alvi’s books on Indo-Islamic history includeMir’at al-‘Alam: History of Emperor Awangzeb Alamgir (2 vols); and Advice on the Art of Governance: An Indo-Islamic Mirror for Princes (Mau‘izah-i Jahangiri) of Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani. Professor Alvi has written scores of major scholarly articles collection of essays, and in reputable journals such as Der Islam, Studia Islamica, Journal of Turkish Studies, and the Muslim World. She has contributed chapters and brief notes to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopaedia Iranica, The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and People of Islam, Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, and Encyclopaedia of Religion. Her current two-volume research project in progress is: “Khanqah and Madrasah and Chishtiyya Sufis: Agents of Social Change and Spiritual Rejuvenation in the British Punjab (1750-1850).”

Furthermore, Dr. Alvi has touched many lives by working closely with scores of students who wrote their theses under her supervision and are currently holding distinguished academic positions in various universities in North America, Indonesia and Pakistan. Her outstanding service in promoting heritage languages in Canada is most noteworthy. She directed and edited a pioneering Urdu Instructional Materials Development Project. With the team of 10 members and 5 Boards of Education in Ontario Province, Dr. Alvi developed first set of books for junior and senior kindergarten and grade one, Urdu for Children: Book One (4 volumes plus set of two audiocassettes) in 1997. The second set of books in the series for grades two and three, Urdu for Children: Book Two (7 volumes and a set of two CDs) was published in October 2004. This project was sponsored and funded by the Canadian Government, and Urdu texts and related materials were published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press. The reach and impact of these books is global. It is also expected that these books will serve as a prototype for the development of instructional materials for other heritage languages.

On the controversial issue of hijab, Dr. Alvi undertook another major project at the request of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, and completed it in collaboration with two colleagues from Concordia University as co-editors and contributors along with some graduate students. It culminated in the publication of Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates in 2003. This work is widely read used and also used as textbook in college level courses. Another noteworthy work on women’s issues that Dr. Alvi co-edited is Women in Indonesian Society: Access, Empowerment and Opportunity (2002). This work was conceived and carried out when she was a visiting professor in Indonesia in 1996.

Dr. Alvi has presented scores of papers at professional and scholarly meetings in Canada, U.S., Germany, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Pakistan and India. She has addressed academic and community forums on topics dealing with Islam, the status of women in Islamic societies, Urdu language and literature, the ebb and flow of Islamic civilization over the centuries, the challenges of colonialism and modernity, religion and politics in Islam, success story of multiculturalism in Canada, and controversial issues such as polygamy and hijab. Among her research grants, she has been the recipient of prestigious research grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institute.

Dr. Alvi has actively participated in discussions on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on such topics as “Religion and Peace,” by representing the Islamic viewpoint, “Concept of love in the mystical tradition of Islam” in “Thought for Today;” “Islamic fundamentalism,” and “Islamic concept of the last hour.” She also appeared with her family as a representative of the Muslim family in Canada, in the CBC segment on Islam in its “Converging Lines” series. On the eve of the new millennium, Professor Alvi was profiled in a highly acclaimed “Man Alive” CBC television series dealing with the topic of “Facing God in the Next Millennium.”

Dr. Alvi has served as a consultant to several professional organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities (U.S.), as well as to such Canadian agencies as CIDA, Human Rights Commission, and Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship.

Dr. Sajida Alvi is a wife and mother of two sons. Her husband is emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.