Bio of Asma Barlas - Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID)

Bio of Asma Barlas

Dr. Asma Barlas (barlas@islam-democracy.org) is professor of politics at Ithaca College, New York. She is former chair of the Department of Politics and founding director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity. She has a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy and an M.A in Journalism from Pakistan, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Denver in Colorado.

Barlas was born in Pakistan, where she was one of the first women to be inducted into the Foreign Service. Her career was cut short, however, when General Zia ul Haq fired her for criticizing his military regime. She then joined an opposition paper, The Muslim, as assistant editor but was forced to leave the country in 1983. She then came to the U.S. where she got political asylum. Barlas has received several fellowships and grants, including from the United Nations Department of Public Information, the American Association of University Women, and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies.

Her most recent work has focused on how Muslims produce religious knowledge, especially patriarchal exegesis of the Qur'an. She has explored this theme in her book, "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002) as well as in book chapters and journal articles published in the Journal of Qur'anic Studies and in Macalester International. She also has been invited to present her work at international conferences and venues in Germany, Britain, Pakistan, and (via digital video) India. (A list of her writings can be found at http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/abarlas/index.htm.)

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