Khalid Yahya Blankinship

Who is Khalid Yahya Blankinship?

Khalid Yahya Blankinship is an American historian specialising in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies.

He graduated in 1973 from the University of Washington in History and in the same year, while still in Seattle, converted to Islam.

In 1975 Blankinship received an MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the American University in Cairo, in 1983 a second MA in Islamic History from Cairo University and in 1988 a Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington. He was an advisor for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, produced by Unity Productions Foundation.

He has lived and traveled widely in the Middle East, including eleven years in Egypt and one year in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He is currently a tenured associate professor of religion at Temple University.