Muslim World Initiative

Advisory Committee on U.S.-Muslim World Relations: Member Biographies

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Abdeslam Maghraoui, Chair

Abdeslam Maghraoui joined the Institute as the associate director of the Muslim World Initiative in 2004. His research focuses on political power, authority, and legitimacy in contemporary Muslim societies.

Prior to joining the Institute, Maghraoui was visiting lecturer and resident scholar at Princeton University's Department of Politics and the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. Previously, he was director of Al-Madina, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting accountable governance in the Arab world. As director of Al-Madina, Maghraoui developed research and managed programs on building the capacity of civil society associations in North Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative politics from Princeton University. His publications include: "Ambiguities of Sovereignty: Morocco, The Hague, and the Western Sahara Dispute," Mediterranean Politics, Spring 2003, and "Depoliticization in Morocco," Journal of Democracy, October 2002.

Asma Afsaruddin is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Classics at the University of Notre Dame. Her fields of research are Islamic political and religious thought, Qur'an and hadith, intellectual history, and gender issues. She is the author and editor of three books, the most recent being Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (Leiden, 2002).

She has written numerous articles on Islamic thought and has lectured in the U.S. and abroad. She previously taught at the Johns Hopkins and Harvard Universities and was a visiting scholar at the Centre for Islamic Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, UK, in fall 2003. Afsaruddin serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and is a member of the advisory board of Karamah, a women's human rights organization, both based in Washington, DC. She has been a fellow of the American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo and the American Research Institute in Turkey, Istanbul. Her research has won support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, among others.

Mr. Hady Amr is a thought leader in U.S. relations with the Muslim world. He is currently a fellow in foreign policy studies at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and director of the Brookings Center in Doha, Qatar. He served as a Clinton appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense, helping launch the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Prior to joining Brookings, he managed an independent consulting practice, the Amr Group, and served as the Executive Director of World Links Arab Region and created a Board of Directors that included Queen Rania of Jordan. He currently serves as co-president of the Board of the Arab Western Summit of Skills.

Mr. Amr is the author of an analysis report by the Brookings Institution entitled "The Need to Communicate: How to Improve U.S. Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World" and has also been published in Newsweek and the International Herald Tribune. A former World Bank economist, he has also authored several United Nations reports such as "The State of the Arab Child." Mr. Amr has appeared on arabic television broadcasts and on the BBC. After 9/11, he conducted 100 discussions and focus groups across the Muslim world. In 1994, he earned a Masters in Economics and Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang has taught at the Department of African Studies at Howard University since 1972. He served as the Deputy Ambassador of the Republic of Gambia to seven Middle Eastern and North African countries from 1975-1978. In the 1980s, Dr. Nyang served as a board member and Chairman of the Africa and International Committee of the Montgomery County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

He also served as co-director with the late Dr. James C. Moone of the NAACP of a research project on Black Leadership in Montgomery County sponsored by the Maryland Council for the Humanities in the 1980s. In 1986 he was appointed chairman of the Department of African Studies. He served for seven years and then stepped down in 1993 to assume the position of Lead Developer and Senior Consultant of the African Voices Project at the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1997, Nyang became the first scholar to be named the Henry Luce Professor for Abrahamic Religions at the University of Hartford and the Hartford Seminary. From 1999 to 2002, he served as a principal investigator and co-director of the Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS) project. He has written extensively on African, Islamic and Middle Eastern affairs.

His most widely known book is Islam, Christianity and African Identity. Nyang has also written chapters in forty-two books and encyclopedias edited by colleagues in the academy as well as scholarly articles in American, African, Asian and European journals and magazines. Professor Nyang served as the first American Muslim president of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

Amaney Jamal is an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University. Her current research focuses on democratization and the politics of civic engagement in the Middle East. She extends her research to the study of Muslim and Arab Americans, examining the pathways that structure their patterns of civic engagement in the US. Jamal is currently working on two books. The first explores the role of civic associations in promoting democratic effects in the Middle East. Her second book, an edited volume with Nadine Naber (University of Michigan), looks at the patterns and influences of Arab American racialization processes. Jamal is principal investigator of "Mosques and Civic Incorporation of Muslim Americans," funded by the Muslims in New York Project at Columbia University; and co-PI of the "Detroit Arab American Study," a sister survey to the Detroit Area Study, funded by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Mustapha Tlili is a Senior Fellow at the Remarque Institute of New York University and NYU Research Scholar. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute of New School University and Director of its UN Project, as well as Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

He is a former senior United Nations official, having served the organization in various capacities over a long career. In particular, he was the director of the UN information center for France, located in Paris, chief of the Namibia, Anti-Apartheid, Palestine and Decolonization programs in the Department of Public Information at UN Headquarters in New York, and principal officer/director in charge of communications policy in the same department. An established novelist, Tlili is a knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters.

In addition, he edited and contributed to For Nelson Mandela (Henry Holt, 1987) and published an essay on Machiavelli's Theory of Government in the Sorbonne's Revue de Métaphysique et de la Morale. Mustapha Tlili is a member of the Human Rights Watch Advisory Committee for the Middle East and North Africa. He is also regularly contacted by media outlets seeking his point of view on issues concerning U.S. interaction with the Muslim world, including terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the Bush administration's policies toward the Middle East. He has made television appearances on CNN, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and France's Arte; frequently gives radio interviews to Radio Free Europe, Radio Canada, and Wisconsin Public Radio; and has contributed to the Op-ed section of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Ahmed Younis is a graduate of Washington & Lee School of Law in Lexington Virginia. He is the author of a book entitled American Muslims: Voir Dire (Speak the Truth), a post-September 11 look into the reality of debate surrounding American Muslims and their country. His book was translated into Arabic and widely distributed. Earlier this month, Younis organized an MPAC delegation of American Muslim professionals and activists to attend a U.N. sponsored seminar on "Confronting Islamophobia." His numerous endeavors before joining MPAC include an internship at the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations. He was assigned to the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Iraq. Ahmed has studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. Ahmed has numerous academic publications and served as Assistant Director of the Commission on the Status of Women for the National Model United Nations, one of the largest global student conferences.

Ghiyath Nakshbendi is the Principal of the Sangamore Group, a real estate asset management company based in the Washington, D.C. area. Throughout his career, Ghiyath has developed expertise in multiple disciplines, including real estate asset management, developmental financing, consulting and teaching. His professional associations includes: The Kuwait Investment Authority (the manager of the State of Kuwait's investments world wide), The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Kuwait Real Estate Investment Consortium, Newfield Enterprises International, Public Institution for Social Security (Kuwait), Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce (Kuwait).

His professional academic associations include: Montgomery College, George Mason University, King Saud University (Saudi Arabia) and the Washington Center for Internships & Academic Seminars. Ghiyath teaches accounting, management and international business courses and wrote and translated articles in business and finance. He lectures in international conferences in finance, economic development. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from American University, earned a Master of Business Administration from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Commercial Sciences from Aleppo University. Ghiyath belongs to the Nakshbendis — a Moslem Sufi tariqa spread all over the world, mainly in Asia (17 million according to Al Arabi Magazine of Kuwait in 1978). While a Professor at Montgomery College, he started a Masjid in 1973, where Moslem students prayed on Fridays. This was one of the first in an academic institution in the Washington, DC area. He has practiced religious tolerance in the West since the mid-1960s.

Dr. Zahid H. Bukhari is the Director of American Muslim Studies Program (AMSP) and Fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU) at Georgetown University. From 1999-2004, he was Director of Project MAPS: Muslims in American Public Square, which examined the role and contribution of the Muslim community to the American public life. From 1978-1983, he was the executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Public Opinion (PIPO), in Islamabad, a member of Gallup International. He has published and presented papers on Islam and development, Muslim public opinion in the US and other related topics in national and international forums. He is also editor of two volumes of the Project MAPS: Muslims' Place in the American Public Square: Fears, Hopes and Aspirations and Muslim in America: Engaging Polity and Society in Post 9/11 Era (forthcoming). Bukhari was one of the founders of the National Islamic Shura Council, a representative body of the American Muslims consisting of four national Islamic organizations. Since 1996, he has been a member of Mid-Atlantic Catholic-Muslim Interfaith Dialogue sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). From 1990-1995, he served as Secretary General of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Dr. Bukhari was also Chairman of the ICNA Relief/Helping Hand, a non-for-profit relief organization, which operates national and international projects. Dr. Bukhari has a Masters in Economics from the University of Karachi and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Connecticut.

Nihad Awad is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In 1997, Mr. Awad served on Vice President Al Gore's Civil Rights Advisory Panel to the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. In his professional capacity, he has also personally met with Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell to discuss the needs of the American Muslim community. For the 2000 presidential election, Mr. Awad was key figure in the American Muslim Political Coordinating Committee (AMPCC), an umbrella organization of the largest American Muslim organizations, which helped create the first Muslim voting bloc for a presidential election. Mr. Awad is a regular participant in the U.S. Department of State's "International Visitors Program" for foreign dignitaries, journalists and academics who are currently visiting the President of the United States. A few days after 9/11/2001, Mr. Awad was one of the American Muslim leaders invited by the White House to join President Bush in a press conference at the Islamic Center of Washington, the oldest mosque in Washington DC. Mr. Awad has testified before both houses of the U.S. Congress, most recently at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on matters involving Muslims in America. He has spoken at prestigious educational institutions, including Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins Universities. He was a featured speaker at the 2002 Reuters Forum on global cooperation at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. He works with local and national interfaith leaders and organizations to promote positive relations among people of diverse faith.

Sumaiya A. Hamdani is an Associate Professor of History at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Sumaya received her B.A. at Georgetown University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 1995. She is the author of Between Revolution and State: The Construction of Fatimid Legitimacy published in London, England in 2005, and numerous other articles and book reviews on Islamic law, history and women in Islam. She is also the director of Islamic Studies Minor Program at George Mason University, and the book review editor for the journal Hawwa: Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. She is a member of several scholarly organizations, including the Middle East Studies Association, a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, and the Middle East Medievalists (MEM), an international professional non-profit association of scholars interested in the study of the Islamic lands of the Middle East during the medieval period.

Alaa Bayoumi is the Director of the Arabic Affairs Department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest non-profit Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Mr. Bayoumi is an activist and writer on issues related to the American Muslim community and to the relationship between America and the Muslim world. His English writings have appeared in leading American and international newspapers, such as the International Herald Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Since 9/11, Mr. Bayoumi has written extensively in the Arabic press calling for more dialogue and understanding between the Arab and Muslim peoples and the American people. He has been interviewed by leading Arabic media outlets, including Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah and has contributed to numerous leading Arabic newspapers and publications, including Al-Hayat, Al-Sharqalawsat, Al-Jazeera-Net, and Al-Ahram Al-Arabi. He has a MA degree in conflict resolution and a BA in political Science.

Dr. Ahmad Iravani is Director for Islamic Studies and Dialogue at the Center for the Study of Culture and Values at the Catholic University of America. Prior to that he was Mofid University's Representative to the United Nations (2000-2002) and the Dean of the Philosophy School, Mofid University (1996-2000). He received the first stage of Khareg, (equal to Ph.D.) in Islamic Studies, Islamic University, in Qom, Iran, in 1992. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He received his MA in Philosophy from Allamah tabatabaii University, in Tehran, Iran, in 1998 and his BA in Philosophy from Tehran University in 1995. Iravani has been a Research Associate at the Catholic University of America and has been involved in research on Human rights in Islam, comparative issues between Islam and Christianity, and the clash of civilizations. He has also conducted research on the role of Democracy on Iranian Society, Mofid University, Iran, and has been involved in Seminar on Religion and Hermeneutics, in Mofid University, Iran. His professional affiliations include memberships at the Center for International Social Development, The Catholic University of America, the Center for the Study of Cultures and Values (CSCV), and the American Philosophical Association (APA). His publications include: Ian G. Barbour, Religion in age of Science, translation and commentary by Ahmad Iravani. Tehran: Hamid Publication, 2001; a comparative study between Tomas Aquinas and Avicenna (forthcoming) and Freedom according to Islam (forthcoming).

Qamar-ul Huda is the Program Officer for the Religion and Peacemaking Initiative at United States Institute of Peace. Prior to joining USIP he taught Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at Boston College's Theology Department and in Religious Studies Department at the College of the Holy Cross. His area focuses on Islamic theology, intellectual history, ethics, mysticism and the history of Qur'anic hermeneutics. He is currently examining comparative ethics, the language of violence, conflict resolution and non-violence in juristic and non-juristic Muslim authorities in contemporary Islam. His earlier work on Islamic mysticism, specifically on political, theological and social history of the Suhrawardi Sufism was published as Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis (Routledege Curzon Press, 2003). He has written extensively on medieval Islamic texts and mystical treatises. His articles on Islamic theology and mysticism have appeared in appeared in The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, The Muslim World, Theological Studies, The Journal of Islam and Christian-Muslim Affairs, Journal of Islamic Studies and several other journals. In addition to contemporary Islamic ethics and thought, he is translating a number of texts related to Suhrawardi, Chishti, and Naqshbandi Sufism. Dr. Huda earned his doctorate in Islamic intellectual history from UCLA, and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University in International Relations and Comparative Relations. He has done extensive academic studies and research in the Middle East and South Asia.