Scholars in Residence and Research Associates

Dr. Kamran Bashir

Dr. Kamran Bashir is a historian of modern Islam, whose research focuses on the history of the interpretations of the Qur’an in South Asia and the allied question of how modern Muslim views of the life and person of the Prophet Muhammad evolved in the historical contexts of colonial and post-colonial India and Pakistan. He did his MA in Muslim Cultures from the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (London, United Kingdom) and earned his PhD in History in 2018 from the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). Dr. Bashir published his book The Qur’an in South Asia with the Routledge Studies in the Qur’an Series (September 2021) and contributed a chapter to Religious Imaginations: How Narratives of Faith are Shaping Today’s World (ed. James Walters, Gingko Library, London, 2018). His research work has appeared in the Journal of Qur’anic Studies on Qur’anic hermeneutics, and Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation, and Culture on the ethnohistory of marginalized communities in modern South Asia. He has taught courses in liberal arts at the University of Victoria, Camosun College, and Beaconhouse National University (Lahore, Pakistan).

Dr. Amyn B. Sajoo

Amyn Sajoo lectures in the School of International Studies on Middle East politics, human rights, and international law.  His research is at the interface of citizenship & public religion. He served as the Canada-ASEAN Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, with fieldwork in Indonesia and Malaysia — followed by academic affiliations at Cambridge and McGill universities, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), London. His early career was with the Canadian departments of Justice and Global Affairs, and he was the latter’s Visiting Academic in the Middle East in 2010.  

Dr. Sajoo is contributing editor of the Muslim Heritage Series, in which the fifth volume, The Shari'a: History, Ethics, and Law, was selected as a 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association. Since 2018, he has hosted a series of public conversations on “Identity & Citizenship,” co-sponsored by this Centre.  The theme for the 2022 series is “Islamophobia,” in which his onstage guests will include Anver Emon, Kamal al-Solaylee, Ulrike al-Khamis, Mohammed Fadel, and Jasmin Zine.   

Dr. Nozhat Ahmadi

Nozhat Ahmadi is an associate professor of History at the University of Isfahan in Iran. The main area of her research is on the Safavid history, with a focus on Endowment (Waqf), women history and manuscripts. She is the author and editor of several books, articles and manuscripts and has collaborated in a number of research projects with international colleagues. She is currently working on Farsi anthologies in Ottoman Empire.