Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of International Relations at American University in Washington, DC, is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, and has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. Dr. Ahmed is a distinguished anthropologist, writer, and filmmaker. He has been actively involved in interfaith dialogue and the study of global Islam and its impact on contemporary society for many years.
The BBC described him as, “Professor Akbar Ahmed – the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam.” Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, described him as “one of the most important scholars of Islam today.” Adding, “Professor Ahmed has impeccable credentials.” Emel, one of the UK’s leading Muslim magazines, had a feature story with illustrations and called him “the new Ibn Khaldun” (Nov/Dec 2004).Ambassador K Ghori described him thus:“Prof Akbar Ahmed, hailed long time ago as the most notable Muslim anthropologist since the legendary Ibn Khaldoon”(“Commentary”, Pakistan Link:2 June 2005).
Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK, wrote to Professor Ahmed, “Thank you for the wisdom and generosity of spirit you are constantly sho
wing through your spoken and written words. I cannot tell you how important your voice is right now. These are fateful times - and in you classic Islam has a spokesman and role model of supreme grace and dignity. May God/Allah be with you in all you do - and I thank you from the depth of my heart.”
Dr. Ahmed joined the Civil Service of Pakistan, the elite cadre of the Central Superior Services of Pakistan, in 1966. He held important posts in Pakistan and Bangladesh—including Commissioner, Quetta; Political Agent, South Waziristan Agency; Founder-Director General of the National Center for Rural Development, Islamabad. He resigned from service in the summer of 2000. Parallel to his civil service career, Dr. Ahmed was visiting professor at Harvard University, Cambridge University, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Dr. Ahmed is the author of many books on contemporary Islam, including Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society, which was the basis of the BBC six-part TV series called “Living Islam”. His Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise was nominated for the Amalfi Award, and his “Jinnah Quartet,” a four-part project on Pakistan’s founding father, M.A. Jinnah, has won numerous international awards. His Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim World was rated among the best non-fiction books of the year by the Los Angeles Times. Professor Ahmed’s most recent book Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World was the subject of the award-winning “Dialogue” series at the Woodrow Wilson Center. His books have been translated into many languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Indonesian.
Dr. Ahmed’s books Resistance and Control in Pakistan and Postmodernism and Islam have been revised and republished and were launched at the House of Commons in July, 2004, by Lords, Members of Parliament, scholars and the media. They were also launched at the “Politics and Prose” bookstore, Washington, DC, on September 1, 2004, an event covered by C-Span television. Dr. Ahmed wrote the foreword to Dr. Tamara Sonn’s recently published book A Brief History of Islam. He has co-edited After Terror: Promoting the Dialogue of Civilizations with Dr. Brian Forst, which was published by Polity Press in 2005. He is working with his daughter Dr. Amineh Ahmed on Debating Islam: Islam, America and the Challenge of the Ilm-Ethos (Polity Press).
Dr. Ahmed was given the 2004 Professor of the Year Award for Washington DC by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He was given the 2004 Scholar of the Year Award by the Pakistani-American Congress and he is the recipient of the Star of Excellence in Pakistan and the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal given by the Royal Society of Asian Affairs in London. He is also the recipient of the 2002 “Free Speech Award” given by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and in 2004 he received the Gandhi Center Fellowship of Peace Award, the Sir Sayyed Ahmed Memorial Award, the Safeer Pakistan Award and the Coudert Institute Award. Dr. Ahmed was invited to join the legendary figures in Anthropology’s Hall of Fame as part of the "Anthropological Ancestors" audio-visual interview series at Cambridge University in July 2004.
He was honored at a special Evensong Service, hosted by Bishop John Chane, in the Nave of the Washington National Cathedral on February 20, 2005. He received the “Humanitarian Award”, the highest honor of the Chapel of Four Chaplains, in April 2005 and The First Annual Bridge Builder’s Award from the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington in June 2005.
Earlier he was appointed Trustee of the World Faiths Development Dialogue by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 2003, the Bishop of Washington DC appointed him Charter Member of a national-level interfaith initiative based at the National Cathedral. He was asked to join the World Wisdom Council, the Board of Interfaith Advisors for the Council on Faith and International Affairs, the Institute for Global Engagement, Board of Advisors for The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Michigan, National Board Advisory Committee for The Council for America’s First Freedom, Richmond VA, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Family Voices (Victims of 9/11) and the International Institute for Mediation and Historical Conciliation. He was Co-Chair of the “Hope Not Hate” Town Hall meetings in the US organized by the Americans for Informed Democracy in 2004. He is Consulting Distinguished Scholar, The Buxton Initiative, Washington, D.C. and Senior Advisor, Center for Workable Solutions. He is President of The Advisory Council of The Society for Dialogue and Action, Cambridge, UK. In 2005, he was appointed Senior Fellow for the Case Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Akbar Ahmed has delivered a number of keynote addresses to prestigious organizations. He addressed members of Congress at the bipartisan Congressional retreat in Greenbrier. He has lectured at the National Defense University, Foreign Service Training Institute, USAID and the State Department. He has conducted courses on Islam as Chief Moderator for the Society of Fellows Seminar and the Socrates Society at the Aspen Institute, the Young President’s Organization, and the World Bank. He was the featured speaker in the Summer Speakers Series of the Aspen Institute in 2003 and speaker at World Leaders on Faith and Development Conference, Dublin, January 31 – February 1, 2005 (also attended the first Conference at Canterbury in 2002). In 2005, Dr. Ahmed gave the Keynote Address at The First Abrahamic International Conference in Palm Beach, the Keynote Address at the World Affairs Seminar for High School Students at The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the Keynote Address at St. Vincent College Biennial Conference Entitled “The West at War”(first Muslim to do so). He spoke in the Humanities Lecture Series, University of Kansas (first Muslim speaker). He spoke at the Chairman’s Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series at the Pentagon and gave the inaugural lectures for the first Chair in Jewish-Muslim Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ahmed is Principal Investigator for “Islam in the Age of Globalization”, a project supported by The Brookings Institution, American University and The Pew Research Center, and Visiting Fellow at Brookings in addition to his appointment at American University. He along with Dr. Judea Pearl was a Finalist in the “Most Inspiring Person of the Year 2005” poll conducted by BeliefNet.
With Dr. Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, he has been engaged in public dialogues across the country and abroad since 2003. In 2004 Dr. Ahmed spoke with Dr. Judea Pearl at the House of Lords in London, where they were welcomed by a Jewish, a Muslim, and a Christian Lord. They also spoke at the residence of the US Ambassador in London. They spoke at the launch of the Jewish-Muslim Alliance at a reception hosted by the British Foreign Minister. They also met with UK’s Chief Rabbi and visited a Muslim and a Jewish school as part of the Chief Rabbi’s annual address to the nation broadcast by BBC television. The Washington Post carried a major story on the Ahmed-Pearl dialogue on August 1 and C-Span broadcast their dialogue in Baltimore in November 2004. Dr. Ahmed and Dr. Pearl toured Canada in 2005.
Dr. Ahmed makes frequent media appearances in the United Kingdom and the United States. He has been interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, PBS’s “Think Tank”, NBC “Nightly News”, “Nightline”, NPR, CBC and BBC. He has appeared several times on the “Oprah Winfrey Show”. He is the Presenter/Host for a major British television series on Islamic Art to be broadcast in the fall. He serves on the advisory board of the Globalist and the editorial board for the Journal of Human Rights. Dr. Ahmed is a regular syndicated
columnist for Religion News Service. Dr. Ahmed was a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London and is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC.
For media requests, contact:
Clark Gregor, American University
(202)885-5935
or email gregor@american.edu
For speaking engagements, contact:
Du Plain International Speakers Bureau
(202) 244-3338
or email Martha_hernandez@comcast.net
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Reflections from East Asia - In East Asia, 'Arab Islam' and moderate Islam are clashing. In India, orthodox thinking is flourishing--and that's a good thing. By Akbar Ahmed
Akbar Ahmed named D.C.’s Professor of the Year
Professor Shares $100,000 'Purpose Prize'
The new award recognizes Professor Akbar Ahmed's candid conversations on faith, culture, violence, and tolerance in a series of Muslim-Jewish interfaith dialogues with Judea Pearl, the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl.
REVIEWS: A bridge too far - Reviewed by Karamatullah K. Ghori