Malika Zeghal named Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life

Islamic Studies Today 2010

Malika Zeghal Named Alwaleed Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life

Malika Zeghal joined the Harvard faculty as the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life in 2010. Professor Zeghal is an alumna of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris (rue d’Ulm), and she earned her Ph.D. in political science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. Before coming to Harvard, she was Associate Professor of the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. In addition to her appointment in Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Professor Zeghal is an Affiliated Professor of Government in the Department of Government and a member of the Committee on the Study of Religion. Her research focuses on the interaction between Islam and politics in the modern Middle East. Professor Zeghal’s publications include Gardiens de l'Islam. Les oulémas d'al-Azhar dans l'Egypte contemporaine (1996), a study of the Egyptian ulama of al-Azhar since the 1950s and of their engagement with politics, and Islamism in Morocco: Religion, Authoritarianism, and Electoral Politics (2008), a volume on Islam and politics in contemporary Morocco that won the French Voices-Pen American Center Award. She is currently completing a book on Islam and the state in the Modern Middle East, forthcoming at Princeton University Press.

Malika Zeghal
Malika Zeghal