Agra: In an unprecedented move, the Aligarh Muslim University has appointed prominent Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, general secretary of Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind, as an adjunct faculty in Shia theology in the university for a year. He is among 12 faculty members drawn from across the globe who would be teaching AMU students, officials said.According to AMU registrar Javaid Akhtar, though this was the first time that a cleric would be teaching students at AMU, Kalbe Jawad had been chosen for his expertise in the subject. He is a prominent Shia Muslim cleric and scholar from Lucknow. He led anti-government demonstrations in 1997 to lift a two-decade-old ban on the controversial Azadari processions in Lucknow and was arrested twice during the movement. Jawad is also famous for holding the biggest ever anti-US-Israel-Denmark rally at Lucknow which was attended by over one million people in protest against cartoons of the Prophet in a Danish newspaper.Recently, at the meeting of a national-level body of Shia clerics, Jawad had advised clerics and organisations of the community to stay out of the controversy regarding triple talaq, calling it an “issue which concerns the Sunnis”.A senior professor at AMU said that the aim of having an adjunct faculty is “to attract distinguished individuals who have excelled in any field of specialisation to enrich the overall leaning processes by bringing external perspectives to regular teaching”.Others in the faculty include Dr Madad Ali from the US, who has been appointed at the department of surgery; Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta from Sweden, who has been assigned to teach at the department of education, Todd R Sandrin from Arizona State University, (US), who will teach at the department of interdisciplinary biotechnology unit; Ivan Coste-Maniris from France who has been appointed to teach at the department of business administration and Sultana Nurun Nahar at the department of physics.Distinguished scholars from India also feature in the list of adjunct faculty, such as Peri Bhaskararao from Hyderabad, who will teach at the department of linguistics; S K Singh, former vice chancellor, HNB Garhwal Central University in Uttarakhand who will be teaching at the department of physics; Azizuddin Khan from Mumbai who will teach at the department of psychology; Salim H Naqvi who will teach applied physics; Dr Manju Gupta from Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi who has been appointed to teach at the department of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery and Dr Jaideep Malhotra from Agra who will teach at the department of obstetrics and gynecology, university officials said.
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