Omid Safi
{{short description|American academic}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Omid Safi
| image =
| alma_mater = Duke University
| website = [https://web.archive.org/web/20081102021314/http://www.omidsafi.com/ omidsafi.com]
| main_interests = Sufism, contemporary Islam, liberationist spirituality
}}
Omid Safi is an Iranian-American professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He was the Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center from July 2014 to June 2019 and was a columnist for On Being.[http://www.onbeing.org/content/omid-safi Columnist Profile]; On Being.org; 2015 Safi specializes in Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. Before joining Duke University, Safi was a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was on faculty at Colgate University as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion from 1999 - 2004.{{cite web | url=https://duke.academia.edu/omidsafi/CurriculumVitae | title=Omid safi | Duke University - Academia.edu }}
Life and work
Omid Safi was born in Jacksonville, Florida{{cite news|url=http://www.chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/Islam-s-warrior-prophet-shrouded-by-myth-devotion-1733240.php|title=Islam's warrior prophet shrouded by myth, devotion|author=Kevin Eckstrom|date=November 27, 2009|publisher=Houston Chronicle|access-date=April 21, 2013}} and is of Iranian descent. He was raised in Iran and migrated from Tehran to the United States with his family in 1985.
Safi is a leader of the progressive Muslim movement,{{cite book | last1 = Jones | first1 = Robert P. | title = Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life | publisher = Rowman & Littlefield | date = July 25, 2008 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/progressiverelig0000jone/page/224 224] | isbn = 978-0-7425-6230-1 | quote = Omid Safi is the most widely recognized leader of the progressive Muslim movement | url = https://archive.org/details/progressiverelig0000jone/page/224 }} 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.{{cite journal|journal=ISIM Newsletter|author=Omid Safi|title=What is Progressive Islam?|year=2003|url=http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/jsrforum/pdfs/SafiProgressive.pdf|access-date=April 21, 2013}}
After September 11, 2001 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."{{cite book|author=Edward E. Curtis IV|title=Muslims in America : A Short History: A Short History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i4qN0QfrtdIC&pg=PT116|access-date=21 April 2013|date=2 September 2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-971014-0|page=116}}
Safi's book Progressive Muslims (2003) contains a diverse collection of essays by and about progressive Muslims. He is one of a number of progressive scholars of Islam in the early 21st century whose work has described for Western readers the diverse range of Muslim thought in the last half of the 20th century.{{cite book|author1=Martin Van Bruinessen|author2=Julia Day Howell|title=Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oj21I-zWWgIC&pg=PA5|access-date=21 April 2013|date=15 October 2007|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-85043-854-0|page=5}} As such, he has been described by Kevin Eckstrom, editor-in-chief of the Religion News Service, as "on the front edge of a generation of scholars who, with one foot in both worlds, are trying to explain Islam and the West to each other."
Safi's more recent works deal with the themes of Islamic spirituality. These include the volume Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters'.{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}} His more recent work in this area is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition'', which was published by Yale University Press 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. {{Citation needed|date=August 2022}}
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 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)
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- [http://www.onbeing.org/content/omid-safi Omid Safi's weekly column for On Being]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20130424081217/http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/ Omid Safi's blog]
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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:American Islamic studies scholars
Category:Duke University alumni
Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
Category:American Shia Muslims
Category:Academics from Jacksonville, Florida
Category:21st-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Category:American writers of Iranian descent