About the Goldziher Prize
The Goldziher Prize began in 2010 as an award for academics in the field of interfaith relations, in association with the Center for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College, an independent college in the Catholic Augustinian tradition, and the William and Mary Greve Foundation.
Originally awarded to scholars and then activists, the Goldziher Prize honored Prof. Mark Cohen (2010), Rabbi Burton Visotzky (2012), Prof. Josef Meri (2014), Mr. Daoud Abudiab, and Mr. Bernhard Werthan (2016).
In 2017, with Evelyn Messinger, co-founder of Internews, Tamar Miller created the Goldziher Prize for Journalists to amplify stories beyond ‘bombs, blood, and bad news’, particularly about Muslim Americans. ‘Goldziher’ continues to award monetary prizes to journalists whose works have been engaging, illuminating, touching, as well as fun!
Religion News Foundation, dedicated to strengthening and improving the understanding of religion in America and the world, joined the effort for the 2019 competition.
The William and Mary Greve Foundation, under the leadership of John W. Kiser (pictured), has sponsored the prize each year.
Who is Ignác Goldziher?
The Goldziher (Gold-zi-air) Prize is named for Ignác Goldziher (1850-1921), a respected Hungarian Jewish scholar of Islamic jurisprudence. He is credited as one of the founders of Islamic Studies in Western and Central European universities, where Jews had only recently been admitted and where the study of Islam in European departments of religion was previously treated as heresy. In the 1870’s, Goldziher toured Constantinople, Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem and Cairo, where he became a student at Al-Azhar, the largest university in the Muslim world. There he prayed in a mosque and wrote in his diary, “In the midst of thousands of the pious, I rubbed my forehead against the floor… never in my life was I more devout … than on that Friday.” Goldziher believed Islam represented a touchstone for other monotheistic religions.
Goldziher was unique for his time, because he studied Islam from within and from without; that is to say, critically but not judgmentally. He took in the vast diversity of the Muslim experience, historically. Of course, Goldziher was not free of biases, but he felt a close affinity with Islam without being Muslim -- an interesting and productive position to claim.
