Akbar Ahmed

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Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, Sitara-i-Imtiaz, or Akbar Ahmed, is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington, D.C. and was the First Distinguished 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 Universities. He was the Iqbal Fellow 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, the elite cadre of the Central Superior Services of Pakistan in 1966, and held senior level posts in Pakistan and Bangladeshâ??including Commissioner, Quetta; and Political Agent, South Waziristan Agency. He also served as the High Commissioner from Pakistan to the UK.

He is also an author, poet and a playwright.

Ahmed has also been a leader in interfaith dialogue among both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths.