Omid Safi, Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Please note: Omid has left the "Asian & Middle Eastern Studies" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Omid is a scholar of Islamic mysticism (Sufism) as well as contemporary Islamic thought at Duke University. He returned to Duke University in 2014 (after having obtained a BA, MA, and PhD from Duke earlier) to lead the Duke Islamic Studies Center.

Omid’s passion for teaching has been recognized through the ten times that he has been nominated for professor of the year awards.  A leading Muslim public intellectual, Omid is committed to the intersection of spirituality and social justice.

Omid has published extensively on the foundational sources of Islam and Sufism. His Memories of Muhammad is a biography of the Prophet Muhammad.  His most recent book is Radical Love:  Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (published by Yale). His next book is Breathing With God:  Spiritual Sayings of Kharaqani (also by Yale), followed by a book on the mystic Rumi from Princeton. 

Omid is also deeply committed to liberationist prophetic traditions in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Rabbi Heschel, and Malcolm X.  He has been invited by the family of Dr. King to speak at Ebenezer Church on the relevance of Dr. King for today’s America, and has delivered the Martin Luther King keynote in the annual national MLK service.

Omid often appears as an expert on Islam in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN and other outlets. He is a recent columnist for On Being, and now has a podcast (“Sufi Heart”) at Be Here Now. In his work outside of Duke, his Illuminated Tours have taken more than a 1,000 friends from over twenty countries to Turkey and Morocco since 2002, and he is now offering Illuminated Courses for online offerings on spiritual traditions open to seekers of all backgrounds.

Office Location:	2204 Erwin Road Room 205, Box 90414, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:

Teaching (Fall 2024):

• AMES 108.01, INTRO TO MIDDLE EAST Synopsis

  Allen 226, MW 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

  (also cross-listed as ICS 115.01)

• AMES 223S.01, MUHAMMAD: THE PROPHET OF ISLAM Synopsis

  Allen 306, MW 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

  (also cross-listed as MEDREN 323S.01, RELIGION 223S.01)

Office Hours:

Tuesday 4:00 - 5:00

Education:

Ph.D.

Duke University

2000

Recent Publications

1. Safi, O, Who Put Hate in my Sunday Paper?: Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networks behind the "Obsession" DVD, in Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities (January, 2011), pp. 21-32, Palgrave Macmillan US, ISBN 9780230119048 [doi]
2. Hammer, J; Safi, O, Introduction: American Islam, Muslim Americans, and the American experiment, in The Cambridge Companion to American Islam (January, 2011), pp. 1-14, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781107002418 [doi]  [abs]
3. Hammer, J; Safi, O, The Cambridge companion to American Islam (January, 2011), pp. 1-371, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781107002418 [doi]  [abs]
4. Safi, O, All that is between them, Parabola, vol. 31 no. 2 (December, 2006), pp. 72-76
5. Safi, O, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry (January, 2006), pp. 292 pages, Univ of North Carolina Press, ISBN 0807856576  [abs]