CAIRO – Prominent Islamic scholar Skeikh Hamza Yusuf has been invited by prestigious Yale University to talk about “a life worth living” next week in an event sponsored by Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture.

“Join us for an evening with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, president of Zaytuna College and perhaps the most influential Islamic scholar in the Western world as he lays out a Muslim vision of a life worth living,” an announcement posted on Yale Center for Faith & Culture read.

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf is president of Zaytuna College, a Muslim liberal arts college in Berkeley, California, and has been called “perhaps the most influential Islamic scholar in the Western world” by The New Yorker magazine.

Yusuf, a former Greek Orthodox Christian who reverted to Islam when he was 17, will speak about the “good life” from a Muslim perspective.

The event will be held at 7:30 pm next April 6 at Battell Chapel, 400 College St.

He then will hold a conversation with Yale Divinity School professor Miroslav Volf about what it means to attain a good life.

Yusuf advocates for peace and justice and has been critical of US foreign policy as well as radical reactions to that policy.

Born Mark Hanson, Yusuf grew up in northern California and moved to the United Arab Emirates in 1979, where he studied Islamic sciences.

He also studied in Algeria, Morocco, Spain and Mauritania, where he developed a relationship with the scholar Murabit al-Hajj. His books include “The Prayer of the Oppressed,” published in 2010.