Shahab Ahmed
شہاب احمد
Born	(1966-12-11)December 11, 1966 Singapore
Died	September 17, 2015(2015-09-17) (aged 48)
Nationality	Pakistani
Academic background
Education	International Islamic University Malaysia(BA) American University in Cairo(MA) Princeton University(PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	Islamic studies
Institutions	Princeton University(2004–05) Harvard University(2005–15)
Notable works	What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic

Shahab Ahmed (Urdu:شہاب احمد; December 11, 1966 – September 17, 2015) was a Pakistani^[1] scholar ofIslam atHarvard University.

Ahmed's posthumous workWhat Is Islam? was listed inThe Chronicle of Higher Education as one of the eleven best scholarly books of the 2010s, chosen byNoah Feldman.^[2] Professor Elias Muhanna ofBrown University described the work as "a strange and brilliant work, encyclopedic in vision and tautly argued in the manner of logical proof, yet pervaded by the urgency of a political manifesto".^[3]

Ahmed's parents were Pakistani doctors who were living in Singapore at the time of his birth. He was born atMount Alvernia Hospital, educated atAnglo Chinese School, Singapore andCaterham School, before studying atInternational Islamic University Malaysia.^[4] After work as a journalist inAfghanistan, he gained a master's degree at theAmerican University in Cairo and his PhD atPrinceton University.^[5] He was a junior member of theHarvard Society of Fellows (2000–2003), and served as a Visiting Lecturer and Research Fellow atPrinceton University (2004–2005), Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard University (2005–2014),Higher Education Commission of Pakistan Visiting Scholar at the Islamic Research Institute inIslamabad (2007–2008), and Lecturer on Law and Research Fellow in Islamic Legal Studies atHarvard Law School (2014–2015).^[6][7][8]

Apolyglot who was "master of perhaps 15 languages",^[6] Ahmed's broad field of study was Islamicintellectual history, with a special interest in theSatanic Verses and the supposed evaluation of its historicity by Islamic scholars of themedieval period.^[9][10]

He died ofleukemia on 17 September 2015,^[4] at the age of 48.^[11]

In a posthumous presentation about him, Shahab Ahmed's sister highlighted her brother's fondness and appreciation for good wine. In this regard, she noted that "he felt very much in good company withJahangir, withGhalib, and with other writers [...] he adored."^[4]

• Ibn Taymiyya and his Times. Co-edited with Yossef Rapoport. Oxford University Press: 1st Edition: September 9, 2015, 400 p. (ISBN 019940206X).
• What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton University Press: November 17, 2015, 624 p. (ISBN 0691164185).
• Before orthodoxy: the Satanic Verses in early Islam. Harvard University Press: April 24, 2017, 336 p. (ISBN 9780674047426).
• Neither Paradise Nor Hellfire: Understanding Islam through the Ottomans, Understanding the Ottomans through Islam (forthcoming).

• "Ibn Taymiyyah and the Satanic Verses". Studia Islamica 87 (1998): 67–124.
• "The Poetics of Solidarity: Palestine in Modern Urdu Poetry", Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics/Alif: Majallat al-Balāghah al-Muqāranah 18 (1998), thematic issue on "Post-colonial Discourse in South Asia/Khiṭāb mā ba`d al-kūlūniyāliyyah fī junūb āsyā," 29-64.
• "Mapping the World of a Scholar in sixth/twelfth century Bukhara: Regional Tradition in Medieval Islamic Scholarship as Reflected in a Bibliography", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 120.1 (2000), 24-43.
• "The Sultan's Syllabus: A Curriculum for the Ottoman Imperial Medreses Prescribed in a Fermān of Qānūnī I Süleymān, Dated 973 (1565)", cowritten with Nenad Filipovic. Studia Islamica 98/99 (2004): 183–218.

• Review ofAndrew Rippin (ed.),The Qur'ān: Formative Interpretation, Aldershot: Ashgate-Variorum, 2000, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 36.2 (2003), 216-218.
• Review ofIssa J. Boullata (ed.),Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur'ān, Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 14.1 (2003), 93-95.
• Review of Meir M. Bar-Asher,Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism, Leiden: Brill, 1999, Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.1 (2003), 183-185.
• Review of Daphna Ephrat,A Learned Society in a Period of Transition: The Sunni `Ulama' of Eleventh-Century Baghdad, State University of New York Press, 2000, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 123.1 (2003), 179-182.

• 1966 births
• 2015 deaths
• 21st-century Muslim scholars of Islam
• American academics of Pakistani descent
• American historians of religion
• American Islamic studies scholars
• American writers of Pakistani descent
• Anglo-Chinese School alumni
• Deaths from leukemia
• Harvard Law School faculty
• International Islamic University Malaysia alumni
• Princeton University alumni
• Princeton University faculty

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