Leila Ahmed becomes first Professor of Women's Studies in Religion

Islamic Studies Today 1999

Leila Ahmed Becomes First Professor of Women’s Studies in Religion

Leila Ahmed was born in Cairo, Egypt and earned her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. She then moved to the United States and became a professor of women’s studies and Near Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Professor Ahmed joined the Harvard Faculty of Divinity in 1999 as the first Professor of Women's Studies in Religion, thereby becoming a pioneer not only in Islamic studies but also in women’s and gender studies. She was appointed to the Victor S. Thomas chair in 2003 and became the Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity upon her retirement in 2020. Professor Ahmed’s many publications include herbook, A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America (2011), which has been widely acclaimed and was the winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion for 2012, Women and Gender in Islam: The Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (1992), and Edward W. Lane: A Study of His Life and Work and of British Ideas of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century (1978), as well as many articles.

Leila Ahmed
Leila Ahmed