Omid Safi is a leading Muslim public intellectual. He is the Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center , where he serves as a professor of Islamic Studies specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and Islamic spirituality. He is the Chair for the Islamic Mysticism group at the American Academy of Religion, the largest international organization devoted to the academic study of religion.
Omid is an award-winning teacher and speaker, and was nominated six times at Colgate University for the “Professor of the Year” award, and before that twice at Duke University for the Distinguished Lecturer award. At the University of North Carolina, he received the award for mentoring minority students in 2009, and the Sitterson Teaching Award for Professor of the Year in April of 2010.
He is the editor of the volume Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003). In this ground-breaking volume, he inaugurated a new understanding of Islam which is rooted in social justice, gender equality, and religious/ethnic pluralism. His work Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam, dealing with medieval Islamic history and politics, was published by UNC Press in 2006. His Voices of Islam: Voices of Change, was published by Praeger in 2006. His next book was published by HarperCollins, titled Memories of Muhammad, and deals with the biography and legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. His last volume on American Islam was just published by Cambridge University Press. He has a forthcoming volume from Princeton University Press on the famed mystic Rumi. The Carnegie Foundation recognized Omid as a leading Scholar of Islam in 2007-2008. His next book from Harvard University Press deals with debates on contemporary Islam in the Iranian context.
He has been among the most frequently sought speakers on Islam in popular media, appearing frequently in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, CNN, and international media. He has recently been designated as a lead Islam writer for the Huffington Post. He regularly blogs at On Being. He leads a summer program in Turkey, Illuminated Tours, which focuses on the spiritual dimension of Islam and the rich encounter of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism there. The program is open to everyone, and Omid invites the audience members to join him on that journey.