Akbar S. Ahmed

Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, Sitara-i-Imtiaz, or Akbar Ahmed, is an author, poet, and playwright, who currently serves as the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington, D.C.. He was also the First Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served as a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and has taught at Princeton and Harvard. He was the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) and Fellow of Selywn College at the University of Cambridge. In the fall of 2012, Ahmed was the Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Visiting Professor of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge.

He joined the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), the elite cadre of the Central Superior Services of Pakistan, in 1966, and held senior level posts in Pakistan and Bangladesh—including Commissioner, Quetta, and Political Agent, South Waziristan Agency. He also served as the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the U.K..

Ahmed has been a leader in interfaith dialogue among both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths. Along with Judea Pearl, father of the journalist Daniel Pearl, he has held public dialogues in an effort to dispel hatred and ignorance. For their efforts, Ahmed and Pearl were awarded the Purpose Prize in 2007. Ambassador Ahmed was also the recipient of the first Gandhi Center Fellowship of Peace Award in 2004.

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