Abdulaziz Sachedina

Who is Abdulaziz Sachedina?

Abdulaziz Sachedina is the Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, teaching mainly subjects associated with Islam. He has been a professor for 33 years, beginning in 1975. He annually teaches courses on Classical Islam, Islam in the Modern Age, Islam, Democracy and Human Rights, Islamic Bioethics and Muslim Theology. He was born in Tanzania, his heritage originally is from India. He has an MA/PhD from the University of Toronto and has BA degrees from Aligarh Muslim University in India and Ferdowsi University of Mashad in Iran. He was one of the students of Dr. Ali Shariati in Iran.

In 1998, Grand Ayatollah Sistani issued a statement against Sachedina that advised Muslims not to listen to his talks or to ask him questions about religious matters.

In addition to his work at the university, Professor Sachedina has been a consultant to the Department of Defense regarding Middle Eastern affairs and was an adviser to those drafting the Constitution of Iraq that was put into effect in 2005.

He speaks Hindi, Urdu, French, Persian, Arabic, Gujarati, Swahili, English, Turkish and German.