Dr. Abdulkhabeer Muhammad (born Ricardo Lawrence on April 30, 1949) is a Panamanian Muslim Imam who converted to Islam in 1975 when he was 26 years old. He then became committed to Islam and dawah among the Spanish speaking people in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. His family immigrated to the United States, where he obtained his Juris Doctor with specialization in international law from Syracuse University College of Law in December 1978. He traveled to Sudan to study language and Islam at Umdurman Islamic University 1979-1980. At the same time he was a professor of Comparative Law and English as a second language at Mahadiyah Secondary School in Omdurman. From 1980-1982 he attended Umm Al-Qura Language Program in Saudi Arabia.
From 1983-1996 he has been a professor of business law and strategic management in the undergraduate program at Nova Southeastern University. When he is not there, he has been active in teaching Islam to new Muslims in Panama, presenting Islam on the local television, radio and newspapers. He has also lectured on Islam for the ISNA Conference of Latino Muslims 2000, 2001; in Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Suriname, Barbados, Trinidad, Bermuda and participated in Muslim-Christian dialogue at the Vatican. In 1998 Dr. Abdulkhabeer Muhammad wrote and translated various books on Islam in Spanish for Dar-us-Salaam publishers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and for the Center for Islamic Research and Studies in Panama. He is working on a textbook on Islamic law and banking to be used in the local university and he is planning to translate the well-known works of Ibn Kathir into Spanish.
|
