The AKU-ISMC launched a Guest Scholar Programme in 2022 to further enrich its academic community. AKU-ISMC Guest Scholars are distinguished academics who are acknowledged for their work in one of the strategic research areas of our institute and contribute to our on-going research and teaching collaborations.
The AKU-ISMC Guest Scholar Programme is by invitation only. There is no application process.
AKU-ISMC Guest Scholars are integral to our research and teaching at the institute for the duration of their visit. They have access to one of the finest research libraries in Europe for the study of Muslim cultures and communities and participate in the vibrant and intellectual environment of the institute. Guest Scholars join us on the institute’s research seminars, deliver a public lecture, and teach on our MA programme. The aim of the programme is to strengthen research and collaboration at AKU-ISMC but also to offer visiting Guest Scholars time to focus on their own work in a stimulating environment in the heart of London.
AKU-ISMC Guest Scholar 2022
Dr. Sohair Wastawy
Dr. Sohair Wastawy has more than 40 years of international library and university management experience in the Middle East and the US, and has practiced and taught librarianship in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the US. She served as the Executive Director of Qatar Natioanal Library, Chief Librarian of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and as the Dean of Libraries at Florida Institute of Technology, Illinois State University and Illinois Institute of Technology. In addition to her work in library management, Dr. Wastawy has worked as a consultant to many not-for-profit organisations, corporations and accreditation commissions, and has been the recipient of international awards, including a Peace Fellowships and a Fulbright Scholarship.
More information about Dr. Wastawy can be found here.
AKU-ISMC Guest Scholars 2023
Dr. Aaron W. Hughes
Dr. Aaron W. Hughes is the Philip S. Bernstein Chair of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester, USA. Dr. Hughes is the among the few scholars who work and publish in both Judaism and Islam. He is the author of numerous books, including An Anxious Inheritance Religious Others and the Shaping of Sunni Orthodoxy (Oxford University Press, 2022), From Seminary to University: An Institutional History of the Study of Religion in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2020), and Muslim and Jew: Origins, Growth, Resentment (Routledge, 2019). He was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in North American Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, in 2022/23
More information about Dr. Hughes can be found here.
Dr. Raquel Carvalheira
Dr. Raquel Carvalheira is an Invited Professor of Anthropology at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at NOVA University, Lisbon. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. She has worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) in Lisbon. She specialises in gender, Islam and citizenship in North Africa, and Muslims in Portugal. Dr. Carvalheira is one of the directors of the documentary film "Um Ramadão em Lisboa (A Ramandan in Lisbon)". Her book, "Marrocos no Feminino Conjugalidade e família (Morocco in the Feminine Conjugality and Family)" was published in 2020.
More information about Dr Carvalheira can be here.
