{"id":8143,"date":"2025-11-10T15:46:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/?page_id=8143"},"modified":"2025-11-10T15:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:57:09","slug":"amb-akbar-ahmed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/amb-akbar-ahmed\/","title":{"rendered":"Amb. Akbar Ahmed"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Amb. Akbar Ahmed<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Ambassador\u00a0Akbar 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\u2019s career has included distinguished posts in both academia and public service.\u00a0 Highlights from the past four decades of Ahmed\u2019s 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\u00a0Baluchistan and Political Agent in the Tribal Areas including that of South Waziristan Agency.<\/p>


Ahmed \u00a0\u00a0is 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.\u00a0Mitchell\u00a0Institute\u00a0for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queens University, Belfast, and he joined the advisory board of the Orion\u00a0Policy Institute. He is also a board member of the Center for Excellence, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Ahmed\u00a0\u00a0 was the Muslim Commissioner for the Runnymede Trust Commission to study antisemitism, and subsequently prejudice against Muslims; the former produced Very Light Sleeper<\/em>, and the latter, Islamophobia: A<\/em> challenge for us all<\/em>, which popularized the concept.<\/em><\/p>

Ahmed presented a six- part BBC TV series called Living Islam<\/em> based on his\u00a0\u00a0 book Discovering Islam<\/em>. Accompanying the tv series, BBC also \u00a0 published a coffee-table book, Living Islam<\/em>. Ahmed \u00a0 conceived, produced, and completed the Jinnah Quartet which included Jinnah<\/em>, 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\u00a0 \u00a0on 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<\/em> in Anthropology Today<\/em>. In the summer of 2024 Ahmed and Martin published two scholarly pieces for the Wilson Center magazine. Ahmed\u2019s play Gandhi and Jinnah Return Home<\/em> 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\u2019s The Flying Man: The Golden Age of Islam and Its Contribution to Science and Philosophy <\/em>is \u00a0\u00a0reprinted in 2024 by Beacon Books, London, who are also publishing his America at the crossroads: Islam, Race and Leadership<\/em>. \u00a0Forthcoming publications include an autobiography, From Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim\u2019s Search for Humanity<\/em>, Collected Essays<\/em> and with Frankie Martin and Dr Amineh Hoti, The Mingling of the Oceans:<\/em> How Civilizations can Live Together<\/em>.<\/p>

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Ahmed was invited to\u00a0 \u00a0broadcast \u00a0\u00a0his poems from the Library of Congress in \u201cThe Poet and the Poem\u201d podcast series.\u00a0Ahmed gave a series of high profile talks in the summer of 2024 at Salon, a prominent DC platform, The Sanober Institute, Islamabad, in dialogue on TV with the former Pakistan Foreign Secretary, and with Alex Salmond on his show Scotland Speaks<\/em>. He was the invited speaker at the \u201cInk and Insight\u201d group. He spoke in the fall in the SOAS World Philosophies Lecture Series and as \u00a0\u00a0Distinguished Speaker at the conference, \u201cMahatma Gandhi\u00a0for the 21st-century,\u201d at Bengaluru, India. He was asked to select the posts of full Professor and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Karachi University. He was invited to present\u00a0\u00a0 the keynote address at the 2024 annual fundraising event organized by the Imran Khan cancer appeal for the cancer hospitals of Pakistan and he was given the achievement award by the Pakistan High Commissioner on behalf of the Pakistan American Press Association.<\/p>
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After a hiatus of several years Ahmed and Judea Pearl plan to revive their celebrated dialogue to promote Jewish-Muslim understanding in 2025. He will deliver the 2nd Ibn Sina Lecture in May, 2025, at the Bradford Banqueting Hall, Bradford, UK.<\/p><\/td>

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Citations <\/strong><\/p>

Ahmed won the Star of Pakistan award, the inaugural Gandhi Peace Award and with Professor Judea Pearl the inaugural Purpose Prize. He was named Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and American University SIS Scholar\/ Teacher of the Year. \u00a0The Bishop of Washington hosted an unprecedented Evensong in his honor at the National Cathedral. Ahmed was presented the Mensch Award for \u201cintegrity and kindness\u201d in 2022 by the Mensch Foundation. The President of Pakistan, Dr. Arif Alvi, in 2023 announced 10 books as recommended reading and discussed Ahmed’s Journey into<\/em> Europe<\/em> as number three along with the books of Professors Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington in a video that went viral. He was a \u00a0\u00a0finalist with Dr Pearl in the \u201cMost Inspiring Person of the Year 2005,\u201d Beliefnet poll. Ahmed was given the 12th Annual Rabbi Joshua Herschel\/Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Interfaith activism. He received the First Annual Bridge Builder\u2019s Award from the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and the Humanitarian Award, highest honor of the Chapel of Four Chaplains, Philadelphia, PA. His book Journey into America <\/em>was the winner of the American Book Award. He received the German Peace Prize for\u00a0his The Thistle and the Drone<\/em>, Karachi Literary Festival.<\/p>

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Ahmed\u2019s expertise has earned high praise around the world. He has been cited in The Muslim 500<\/em> among the top fifty Muslims for the last few years. The BBC called him, \u201cThe world\u2019s leading authority on contemporary Islam,\u201d and the\u00a0Saudi Gazette<\/em>\u00a0lauded him as, \u201cPerhaps the most influential living authority on contemporary Muslim societies.\u201d\u00a0\u201cEpic series\u2026 with Dr Akbar S Ahmed. A Renaissance Man in all respects,\u201d Raza Rumi announced introducing his tv series with Ahmed on Muslim history and society. Waqas Ahmed includes Ahmed in his study of \u201cMuslim Polymaths\u201d or \u201cRenaissance men\u201d in the Muslim world. Sheikh Hamza Yusuf described him as a \u201cMuslim treasure himself.\u201d Dr Ashraf Abbassi, President, Pakistan American Congress declared, \u201cI 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.\u201d Professor Noam Chomsky wrote, \u201cAkbar Ahmed\u2019s profound and careful inquiries have greatly enriched our understanding of Islam in the modern world. His latest study \u2026 explores the complex interfaith reality of Europe, both in history and today, from an Eastern perspective, reversing the familiar paradigm. It is \u2026 another influential contribution, one greatly needed in a world riven by conflicts and misunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>

Lord Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the UK wrote, \u201cI cannot tell you how important your voice is right now. These are fateful times and in you\u00a0classic Islam has a spokesman and role model of supreme grace and dignity.” \u00a0Dr. Lord Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, described him as\u00a0\u201cperhaps the most distinguished and versatile Muslim scholar in the English-speaking world today.\u201d \u00a0Professor\u00a0\u00a0 Stanley Wolpert, the renowned American historian\u00a0and author of Gandhi <\/em>and Jinnah of Pakistan<\/em>, introduced Ahmed thus: \u201cAkbar Ahmed is the greatest scholar of Islam in America and the world\u2026nobody else stands so high\u2026he is the Dara Shikoh of modern Islamic leaders.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amb. Akbar Ahmed Ambassador\u00a0Akbar 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\u2019s career has included distinguished posts in both academia and public service.\u00a0 Highlights from the past four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8143","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","style2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8143"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8153,"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8143\/revisions\/8153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgetownpakistanconclave.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}