Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is Distinguished Professor and the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a Wilson Center Global Fellow in Washington, D.C. He was Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. Ahmed’s career has included distinguished posts in both academia and public service.  Highlights from the past four decades of Ahmed’s academic career include appointments such as: Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; the First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD; the Iqbal Fellow and Fellow of Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge (Iqbal Chair of Pakistan Studies); and teaching positions at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Ahmed dedicated more than three decades to the Civil Service of Pakistan, where his posts included Commissioner in Baluchistan and Political Agent in the Tribal Areas including that of South Waziristan Agency.

Ahmed   is a Trustee of the World Faiths Development Dialogue headed by Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and member of the Board of Advisors of the Khalili Foundation headed by Sir David Khalili. His tenure has recently been extended by another five years as member of the International Advisory Board of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queens University, Belfast, and he joined the advisory board of the Orion Policy Institute. He is also a board member of the Center for Excellence, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Ahmed   was the Muslim Commissioner for the Runnymede Trust Commission to study antisemitism, and subsequently prejudice against Muslims; the former produced Very Light Sleeper, and the latter, Islamophobia: A challenge for us all, which popularized the concept.

Ahmed presented a six- part BBC TV series called Living Islam based on his   book Discovering Islam. Accompanying the tv series, BBC also   published a coffee-table book, Living Islam. Ahmed   conceived, produced, and completed the Jinnah Quartet which included Jinnah, a feature film starring Sir Christopher Lee, a documentary which was shown on channel 4 in the UK, an academic book published by Routledge and Oxford University Press, and a graphic novel published by OUP. Ahmed was the expert and commentator   on the legendary scholar Ibn Battuta in a documentary series on world travelers for school children. Along with Frankie Martin and Dr Amineh Hoti, Ahmed published a major article in two parts on Retribalization in the 21st century in Anthropology Today. In the summer of 2024 Ahmed and Martin published two scholarly pieces for the Wilson Center magazine. Ahmed’s play Gandhi and Jinnah Return Home was staged late in 2023 at the Cosmos Club and in a different format at the Katzen and Greenberg theaters and other venues. The play has been filmed as a movie to be shown globally. Ahmed’s The Flying Man: The Golden Age of Islam and Its Contribution to Science and Philosophy is   reprinted in 2024 by Beacon Books, London, who are also publishing his America at the crossroads: Islam, Race and Leadership.  Forthcoming publications include an autobiography, From Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim’s Search for Humanity, Collected Essays and with Frankie Martin and Dr Amineh Hoti, The Mingling of the Oceans: How Civilizations can Live Together.

Citations

Ahmed’s expertise has earned high praise around the world. He has been cited in The Muslim 500 among the top fifty Muslims for the last few years. The BBC called him, “The world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam,” and the Saudi Gazette lauded him as, “Perhaps the most influential living authority on contemporary Muslim societies.” “Epic series… with Dr Akbar S Ahmed. A Renaissance Man in all respects,” Raza Rumi announced introducing his tv series with Ahmed on Muslim history and society. Waqas Ahmed includes Ahmed in his study of “Muslim Polymaths” or “Renaissance men” in the Muslim world. Sheikh Hamza Yusuf described him as a “Muslim treasure himself.” Dr Ashraf Abbassi, President, Pakistan American Congress declared, “I will prefer to sit at your feet and consider myself VVIP. Sir, You mean a lot to me and our Muslim communities across the globe. We are blessed to have you as a living LEGEND.” Professor Noam Chomsky wrote, “Akbar Ahmed’s profound and careful inquiries have greatly enriched our understanding of Islam in the modern world. His latest study … explores the complex interfaith reality of Europe, both in history and today, from an Eastern perspective, reversing the familiar paradigm. It is … another influential contribution, one greatly needed in a world riven by conflicts and misunderstanding.”

Lord Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the UK wrote, “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.”  Dr. Lord Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, described him as “perhaps the most distinguished and versatile Muslim scholar in the English-speaking world today.”  Professor   Stanley Wolpert, the renowned American historian and author of Gandhi and Jinnah of Pakistan, introduced Ahmed thus: “Akbar Ahmed is the greatest scholar of Islam in America and the world…nobody else stands so high…he is the Dara Shikoh of modern Islamic leaders.”