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Ambassador Akbar Ahmed

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Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington DC, the First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a former Pakistani ambassador to Britian.

Degrees: PhD, University of London; MA/Diploma in Education, Cambridge University; BSS (Honors), Birmingham University.

Books and articles:

Video

Topic(s):
Faith Under Fire
Related:
Fear Immigration Reform Muslims Stereotypes The United States
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All immigrant groups in the United States have had to undergo a slow process of integration, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, says Muslims are just starting that process. The hearings have caused fear, anxiety and uncertainty among Muslims but, Ambassador Ahmed says, Muslims as a community have nothing to hide and they need to engage with anyone asking questions. 

Ambassador Ahmed has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities and has been called “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam” by the BBC. He has advised General David Petraeus, the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and other US agencies on Islam and foreign policy. He is regularly interviewed by CNN, NPR BBC, and Fox and has appeared several times on Oprah. 

He is the author of over a dozen award-winning books, including Discovering Islam, which was the basis of the BBC six-part TV series called “Living Islam.” Following up on his critically acclaimed Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, his latest project, based on extensive fieldwork, has resulted in a full length documentary, Journey into America, shown at several film festivals and the book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam.