M. A. Muqtedar Khan

Who is M. A. Muqtedar Khan?

Dr. M. A. Muqtedar Khan is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is also the founding Director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Delaware. Prior to that he was Chair of the Department of Political Science and the Director of International Studies at Adrian College. He was a Non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2003-2008. He earned his Ph.D. in international relations, political philosophy, and Islamic political thought, from Georgetown University in May 2000.

He is a well known Muslim intellectual, whose articles and columns are widely published. He is a proponent of social change regarding treatment of women in some Islamic societies, but identifies himself as both traditional as well as liberal. In a sense he is a traditional scholar when it comes to issues of faith, but a liberal on topics such as democracy in the Islamic world, the place of women in society and on pluralism.

He advocates freedom of thought and independent thinking, and he states that it is the inability of Muslims to sustain a dialogue with time and text that sometimes makes Islamic teachings look anachronistic or even intolerant.