Asma Afsaruddin

Professor of Islamic Studies and former Chairperson, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies and former chairperson of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures in the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Religious Studies and an affiliated professor in the Department of Gender Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1993 and previously taught at Harvard and Notre Dame universities.

Professor Afsaruddin is the author and/or editor of seven books, including Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015); the award-winning Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought and Praxis (Oxford University Press, 2013); and The First Muslims: History and Memory (OneWorld Publications 2008), which was recently translated into Turkish. She has also written over fifty research articles, book chapters, and essays exploring issues as diverse as pluralism and dialogue in the Qur’an, moderation in Islamic thought; exegetical, legal, and ethical approaches to war and peace in Islam, political Islam and democracy, roles of Muslim women, and Muslim-Christian relations. She frequently lectures on these topics in the US, Europe, and the Middle East and consults with governmental and non-governmental organizations on a number of these issues. She currently serves as chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and as a member of the academic council of the Prince al-Waleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Liberal Education, and the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion.

Professor Afsaruddin's research has been funded among others by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which named her a Carnegie Scholar in 2005. She was the Kraemer Middle East Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the College of William and Mary in 2012 and has been a fellow at the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT), Istanbul and at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Cairo.