Dr. Aria Nakissa

Assistant Professor of Islam and Global Affairs

Email

anakissa@hbku.edu.qa

Dr. Aria Nakissa

Assistant Professor of Islam and Global Affairs

Educational Qualifications

PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies

MA in Islamic Law

Entity

College of Islamic Studies

Division

Islam and Global Affairs

Biography

Dr. Aria Nakissa is an assistant professor of Islam and Global Affairs at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). He holds a joint Ph.D. in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MA in Islamic Law from the International Islamic University Malaysia. He studies religion and law in Muslim societies across the globe. He has written extensively on premodern Islamic intellectual history, colonial and post-colonial Muslim societies, and cognitive science in relation to religion and morality. He has also conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Middle East and Southeast Asia using the Arabic and Indonesian languages. 

Dr. Nakissa is the author of The Anthropology of Islamic Law: Education, Ethics, and Legal Interpretation at Egypt's Al-Azhar (Oxford University Press, 2019). His articles have been published in various journals including Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Journal of Global History; History Compass; Journal of Cognition and Culture; Journal of the American Academy of Religion; Method & Theory in the Study of Religion; Religion Compass; Oxford Journal of Law and Religion; Human Rights Review; Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde; Islamic Law and Society; (Harvard Law School) Journal of Islamic Law; Muslim World; and Arabica.

PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies

Harvard University, USA

2012

MA in Islamic Law

International Islamic University Malaysia

2011

JD

Harvard Law School, USA

2006

  • Religion
  • Law
  • Colonialism
  • Global Islam
  • Cognitive science

Assistant Professor of Islam and Global Affairs

College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

2026 – Present

Lecturer in Islamic Studies

Faculty of Islamic Studies and Faculty of Social Sciences, Indonesian International Islamic University

2023 – 2026

Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Anthropology

Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

2015 – 2023

Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies

Department of Religion and Culture, University of Winnipeg, Canada

2013 – 2015

Nakissa, A. (2023). Islamic universities in Egypt and Indonesia as tools of liberal governance: How states use them to canonize reformed versions of Islam. Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 12(3). 423-454.

Nakissa, A. (2022). Islam and the cognitive study of colonialism: The case of religious and educational reform at Egypt’s Al-Azhar. Journal of Global History, 17(3). 394–417. 

Nakissa, A. (2022). Reconceptualizing the global transformation of Islam in the colonial period: Early Islamic reform in British-ruled India and Egypt. Arabica: Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 69(1–2). 146–230.

Nakissa, A. (2019). The Anthropology of Islamic Law: Education, Ethics, and Legal Interpretation at Egypt’s al-Azhar. Oxford University Press.

Nakissa, A. (2014). An ethical solution to the problem of legal indeterminacy: Sharīʿa scholarship at Egypt’s Al-Azhar. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20(1). 93–112.

  • 2020 Henry Luce Foundation Grant as part of group project: “The Global Politics of ‘Moderate Islam.’ ”(declined owing to concerns over security and the Coronavirus epidemic)
  • 2013 – 2014 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford University, UK (declined)
  • 2012 – 2013 Junior Research Fellowship, Crown Center, Brandeis University, USA
  • 2010 – 2011 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant
  • 2002 Graduated summa cum laude, University of Pennsylvania, USA