Shahab Ahmed was most recently Associate Professor of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, holding a joint appointment in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on the Study of Religion. He received his primary schooling in Singapore, his secondary schooling in the UK, and attended university in Malaysia, Egypt and the USA. He first came to Harvard in 2000 as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and was subsequently appointed to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2005. He has just completed book manuscript entitled What is Islam? An Essay on the Importance of Being Islamic (an attempt at conceptualizing Islam as a theoretical object and analytical category). He is currently working on two other books, Neither Paradise Nor Hellfire: Rethinking Islam through Ottoman Culture/Rethinking Ottoman Culture through Islam (about the nature of normative Islam in seventeenth-century Ottoman society; co-authored with Nenad Filipovic), and The Problem of the Satanic Verses and the Formation of Islamic Orthodoxy (a history of the attitudes of Muslims towards the Satanic verses incident from the seventh century down to the present day).

In addition to being an ILSP Visiting Fellow, Ahmed will hold the position of Lecturer on Law, teaching the course Orthodoxy: Truth, Authority, Law.

Office: MZ216
Office Phone: 617-496-3622
E-mail: [email protected]