Akbar Ahmed

Akbar Ahmed
Born	Allahabad, British India[1]
Education	Army Burn Hall College, University of Cambridge, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Occupation	Scholar
Website	Official website

Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, is a Pakistani-American academic, author, poet, playwright, filmmaker and former diplomat.^[2][3] He currently is a professor of International Relations and holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University, School of International Service in Washington, D.C.^[2][3][4] Akbar Ahmed served as the Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. He currently is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Immediately prior, he taught at Princeton University and served as a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.^[2][3][5] He also taught at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the Department of Anthropology.^[5][6][7] Ahmed was the First Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.^[2][5] In 2004 Ahmed was named District of Columbia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.^[3] A former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland, Ahmed was a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan and served as Political Agent in South Waziristan Agency and Commissioner in Baluchistan.^[2][8][5] He also served as the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) at the University of Cambridge.^[2][8][5] An anthropologist and scholar of Islam. He completed his MA at Cambridge University and received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.^[2][5] He has been called "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam" by the BBC.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Ahmed received the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (Medal of Excellence) and Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) from the Pakistani government for academic distinction and the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in London.^[3][12] He was also awarded the inaugural Purpose Prize in 2006 alongside Judea Pearl^[8] and is frequently named in the annual book, The Muslim 500: The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims,^[13] and was named a 2015 Global Thought Leader by The World Post and the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.