03/27/2025
Tribute courtesy of Dr Mohammad Fadel
إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
To God we belong and to Him we return.
"PROFESSOR ABDALLAH SCHLEIFER (1935-Ramadan 2025)
Our hearts are heavy this morning with the news of the passing away of Professor Abdallah Schleifer during these blessed last days of Ramadan. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un
Professor Schleifer was a towering figure in media and journalism and his experience and knowledge of the politics of the region and his insights into religion, spirituality, metaphysics, interfaith, politics, western civilisation, the dynamics of terrorism, the Israeli Occupation, and so much more. Schleifer was Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Kamal Adham Center for Television Journalism – which he founded and served as first director (1985-2005) at The American University in Cairo. He was a distinguished visiting professor in the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Future University; chief editor of The Muslim 500; Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute; editor at large of Arab Media & Society journal; member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (USA), and Senior Fellow at the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought (Amman). In 2006, Schleifer delivered the 11th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs on “Media and Religion in the Arab/Islamic World.” A frequent guest on Al Jazeera English, he reported for AJE from Cairo at the height of the Tahrir Uprising in Feb. 2011 as well as for the Forward (USA). As Global Expert for the UN Alliance of Civilizations, he was often interviewed by a wide range of global media. A veteran journalist Schleifer lived in Cairo for over 40 years, first serving as NBC News Cairo Bureau Chief (’74-’83) before joining the AUC faculty. Shortly after retiring from full-time teaching, Schleifer served as Al Arabiya News channel’s Bureau Chief in Washington DC (’06-’07). Prior to coming to Cairo, Schleifer served as NBC News M.E. Producer-Reporter based in Beirut. He came to the region in 1965, serving as first Managing Editor of Jordan’s daily English-language newspaper published in then Jordanian Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Star, later known as The Palestine News. His eyewitness account of the June 1967 War – The Fall of Jerusalem – was published in 1971. Schleifer stayed on for one additional year in Jerusalem after the war, first as Editorial Assistant and then as “Special Correspondent” (stringer) for the New York Times in Amman (’68-’69) and as Jeune Afrique’s M.E. Correspondent (’68-’72). He was also Editor-at-Large of Islamica Magazine and a Fellow at Kalam Research and Media in both Amman and Abu Dhabi. He was a source of inspiration, and his courage and his anecdotes of meetings with world leaders and political and religious figures could fill hours of inspiring conversation and ideas."
Mohammad Fadel
