Sherman A. Jackson is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture, Distinguished Professor of Religion, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Director of the Center for Islamic Thought, Culture and Practice (CITCAP) at the University of Southern California. He is author of Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (Brill, 1996), On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī’s Fayṣal al-Tafriqa (Oxford, 2002), Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection (Oxford, 2005), Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (Oxford, 2009), Sufism for Non-Sufis: Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh al-Sakandarī’s Tāj al-‘Arūs (Oxford 2012), and Initiative to Stop the Violence: Sadat’s Assassins and the Renunciation of Political Violence (Yale, 2015). His latest and most accomplished publication is The Islamic Secular (Oxford, 2024).

He has authored numerous articles on various aspects of Islamic law, theology, history and Islam and Muslims in modern America. He is listed by Religion Newswriters Foundation’s ReligionLink as one of the top ten experts on Islam in America. And he has been named several times, including in 2023, among the top 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. And he is among the founding scholars of the American Learning Institute for Muslims. Among his proudest moments, however, was the eulogy he delivered at the funeral of the legendary American Muslim, Muhammad Ali. His work as a scholar and intellectual is uniquely devoted to placing the classical Islamic intellectual, religious, and spiritual tradition into robust and meaningful conversation with the challenges and opportunities confronting Muslims in the modern world.

This program is made possible by The Eleanor B. Daugherty Fund.