
Professor Akbar S. Ahmed
Chairman of Islamic Studies, American University
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a Wilson Center Global Fellow in Washington, D.C. His posts have included Commissioner in Balochistan, Political Agent in the Tribal Areas, and Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. He has won the Star of Pakistan award and was recipient of the inaugural Gandhi Peace Award and Purpose Prize with Professor Judea Pearl. The National Cathedral dedicated an unprecedented Evensong to him. Highlights from his past include 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; and teaching positions at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Professor Stanley Wolpert noted: “Akbar Ahmed is the greatest scholar of Islam in America and the world…nobody else stands so high.”