Omid Safi is a
Sufi and Iranian-American
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at
Duke University. He served as the Director of
Duke Islamic Studies Center
The Duke Islamic Studies Center, also known as DISC, is an inter-departmental, cross-cultural center at Duke University dedicated to the study of Islam and Muslims. DISC approaches Islam as a global religion with many distinctive historical and cul ...
from July 2014 to June 2019 and was a columnist for ''
On Being
''On Being'' is a podcast and a former public radio program. Hosted by Krista Tippett, it examines what it calls the "animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?"
Radio program and ...
''. Safi specializes in
Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. He has served on the board of the Pluralism project at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
and served as the co-chair of the steering committee for the Study of Islam and the Islamic Mysticism Group at the
American Academy of Religion.
Before joining Duke University, Safi was a professor at the
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. Before this, he was on faculty at Colgate University as an Assistant Professor of
Philosophy and Religion from 1999-2004.
Life and work
Omid Safi was born in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...
and is of Iranian descent.
He was raised in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and migrated from Tehran to the United States with his family in 1985.
[
Safi is a leader of the progressive Muslim movement, which he defines as encompassing
]a number of themes: striving to realize a just and pluralistic society through a critical engagement with Islam, a relentless pursuit of social justice, an emphasis on gender equality as a foundation of human rights, and a vision of religious and ethnic pluralism.
After September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
Safi was publicly critical of the intolerance and violence among Muslims that inspired the attacks, reminding Muslims that their role lay in "calling both Muslims and Americans to the highest good of which we are capable."[
Safi's more recent works deal with the themes of Islamic spirituality. These include the volume ''Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters'', which looks at Muslims' devotion to the ]Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...
in a variety of contexts.
His more recent work in this area is ''Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition'', which was published by Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
in 2018. Radical Love refers to the teachings of the Path of 'Eshq (Arabic: 'Ishq), a distinct path of Islamic spirituality in which Divine and human love mingle. Embodied in figures such as Rumi, Hafez
Khwāje Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī ( fa, خواجه شمسالدین محمّد حافظ شیرازی), known by his pen name Hafez (, ''Ḥāfeẓ'', 'the memorizer; the (safe) keeper'; 1325–1390) and as "Hafiz", ...
, Sana'i, Ahmad Ghazali, and Kharaqani, this has been a powerful strand of Islamic spirituality in Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, Turkish, and South Asian traditions.
Selected works
Books
* ''Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism.'' Edited by Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003)
* ''The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam.'' (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006)
* ''Voices of Change'' (Vol. 5 in the 5 volume series: ''Voices of Islam''), edited by Omid Safi. (Praeger, 2006)
* ''Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters.'' (HarperOne, 2009)
* ''Voices of American Muslims.'' (New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 2005) By Linda Brandi Caetura with introductory essay and interview with Omid Safi
''Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition'' (Yale Univ. Press, 2018)
Articles
"On the path of love Towards the Divine"
(published in ''Sufi'' magazine)
"A Muslim Spiritual Progressive Perspective on Palestine Israel"
(published in '' Tikkun'')
"I and Thou in a fluid world: Beyond 'Islam vs. the West
"Between 'Ijtihad of the Presupposition' and Gender Equality: Cross-Pollination between Progressive Islam and Iranian Reform"
in Carl Ernst, ed., ''Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism'' (SC, 2010), pp. 72–96.
* "The Emergence of Progressive Islam in America," in Stephen Prothero, ed., ''A Nation of Religions'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2006), pp. 43–60.
"Islamic Modernism,"
in Lindsay Jones et al., ed., ''Encyclopedia of Religion'', Second Edition. (Farmington Hills, MI: MacMillan, 2006), pp. 6095–6102.
"What is Progressive Islam?,"
Newsletter for the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World 13, December 2003, pp. 48–49
Blog
Blog at OnBeing
Postcast
Sufi Heart podcast at BeHereNow Network
Online teaching
Courses on Rumi; Martin Luther King & Malcolm X; and the Qur'an
Educational tours
Tours to Turkey and Morocco
References
External links
Omid Safi's weekly column for On Being
Omid Safi's blog
at ReadTheSpirit.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Safi, Omid
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American Islamic studies scholars
Duke University alumni
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
American Muslims
People from Jacksonville, Florida
Scholars of Sufism
21st-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Muslim reformers
American writers of Iranian descent
American male writers
Iranian expatriate academics