• Associate Professor, History
• Associate Professor, Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies
• Associate Professor, Religious Studies

Ahmet Karamustafa

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• B.A. at Hamilton College
• M.A. at McGill University
• Ph.D. at McGill University

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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Changing a stereotype Islam scholar trying to help Americans understand majority of the world's Muslims are peaceful people Sept. 22, 2004 -- Karamustafa Download Since Sept. 11, 2001, a leading scholar of Islam at Washington University in St. Louis has sought to help an inquiring American public separate stereotype from complex reality and Islamic extremists from the many-sided moderate majority. Ahmet Karamustafa, Ph.D., chair of the Religious Studies program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is trying to help Americans see that although Islam has its radical factions, these factions are small in number and the majority of the world's Muslims are peaceful people.

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Research Focus: Premodern Islamic history

Languages: Modern Turkish (native), Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Persian, German, French (fluency), Azeri, Chaghatay, Uzbek (reading), Russian, Italian, Spanish (basic)

Courses Taught: Islamic Religion: An Introduction, Islamic Civilization, Islamic Religious Traditions, Islamic Mysticism: The Struggle with "Self" in Islam, Islam in Africa, Approaches to the Qur'an, God's Friends: Saints in Islam, Islamic Movements of Reform, Revival and Revolution, Islam and Modernity, Middle Eastern Islamic Literatures in Translation, Beginning Turkish I, Beginning Turkish II, Advanced Turkish I, Advanced Turkish II.

Select Books:

• Assistant Editor, The History of Cartography, Volume 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, Chicago, 1992

• Vahidi's Menakib-i Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can: Critical Edition and Historical Analysis, Harvard University, 1993

• God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200-1550, Utah, 1994

Select Journal Articles:

• "Introduction to Islamic Maps," "Cosmographical Diagrams," "Introduction to Ottoman Cartography," "Military, Administrative, and Scholarly Maps and Plans," in The History of Cartography, Chicago, 1992

• "Kalenders, Abdals, Hayderis: The Formation of the Bektasiye in the Sixteenth Century," in Süleyman the Second and his Time, eds. Halil Inalcik and Cemal Kafadar, Isis, 1993

• "Antinomian Dervish as Model Saint," in Modes de transmission de la culture religieuse en Islam, ed. Hassan Elboudrari, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1993

• "Early Sufism in Eastern Anatolia," in Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 175-98, Khaniqahi Nimatullahi, 1994

• "Muslim Literature in Persian and Turkish," in The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and Peoples of Islam, ed. Azim Nanji, Gale, 1995

• "Islamic Terrestrial Maps and Mapmaking," in The Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin, Kluwer, 1997

• "Dede Korkut," "Karagöz," "Nasrettin Hoca/Mulla Nasruddin," and "Turkish Languages," in The Dictionary of Global Culture, eds. H. L. Gates and A. Appiah, Knopf, 1997

• trans., "On the Seven Invocations and the Seven Journeys," translation from Turkish of a selection from Vahidi's Menakib-I Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can, in Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life, ed. John Renard, California, 1998

• "Otman Baba," Lexicon des Mittelalters, Artemis and Winkler Verlag, forthcoming

• "Esma'il I: Poetry," Encyclopedia Iranica, forthcoming

• "Menakib-i Hvoca-i Cihan," Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi, Islam Ansiklopedisi, forthcoming

• "Early Turkish Islamic Literature," section 10 of article "Turk," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, forthcoming

Currently in Progress:

• Conceptions of the individual in premodern Islamic thought / History of the concept of religion and its application to Islam

Experience: Post-doctoral Research Specialist in History of Cartography, University of Exeter, UK, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1985-1987 / Assistant to associate professor of Islamic Thought and Turkish Literature, Religious Studies Program and Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, Washington University, 1987-1999 / Associate professor of History and Religious Studies, Washington University, 2000- / Director, Center for the Study of Islamic Societies and Civilizations, 1994-97 / Principal Director, American Research Institute in Turkey-Bosphorus University Summer Fellowship Program for Turkish Instruction, 1989-

Summer Research Grant, American Research Institute in Turkey, 1988 / Summer Research Grants, Graduate School, Washington University, 1988-1990 / Annual grants from the Department of Education, Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad for Summer Graduate Fellowship Program for Intensive Turkish Language Study in Turkey, Bosphorus University, Istanbul, 1989-95 / Two-year grant from Near and Middle-East Research Training Act on behalf of the American Research Institute in Turkey for Intensive Turkish Language Study fellowship program, 1997-1999

Academic Honors:

• 1988-1990 Summer Research Grants, Graduate School, Washington University
• 1988 Summer Research Grant, American Research Institute in Turkey
• 1987 Dean's List, McGill University
• 1978-1985 Graduate Study Grants from the Institute of Islamic Studies and Graduate Faculty of McGill University and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London.
• 1978 Graduation magna cum laude, Hamilton College
• 1978 Departmental Honors in Philosophy, Hamilton College
• 1978 Phi Beta Kappa Society

Professional Associations: American Academy of Religion, American Association of Teachers of Turkish, American Research Institute in Turkey, Middle East Studies Association, Society for Iranian Studies, Turkish Studies Association

Service to the Profession: Principal Director, American Research Institute in Turkey-Bogaziçi University Summer Fellowship Program for Advanced Turkish Instruction