Dr. Feryal Salem
I currently serve as Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, as well as Director of the Master of Divinity in Islamic Studies and Muslim Chaplaincy programs at American Islamic College in Chicago. My research interests include Islamic philosophy and theology in the post-classical period, interfaith dialogue, and the development of Muslim thought in the contemporary era as it came into conversation with aspects of modernity. I am the author of The Emergence of Early Sufi Piety and Sunnī Scholasticism: ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak and the Formation of Sunni Identity in the Second Islamic Century (2016) published by Brill in its prestigious “Islamic History and Civilization” series. I have also published Isagoge: A Classical Primer on Logic, which includes my translation and extensive commentary on this foundational work by Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī. I serve on a number of professional boards across the country and regularly travel internationally to engage in scholarship on Islam with academics from a range of diverse institutions. I was recently named one of “25 Influential American Muslims” by CNN for my work in higher education.
I enjoy traveling around the world and sharing insights from the historical landscapes and cultures I encounter. I also regularly lead study tours to places related to my research interests, where travel is a transformative process of experiential learning, asking critical questions, and engaging in personally enriching encounters with perspectives that are often significantly different from our own.