Bio

I am currently Professor of Politics and Director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity at Ithaca College, New York. I completed my Ph.D. in International Studies at the University of Denver, a masters in Journalism at the University of the Punjab (Pakistan) and a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy at Kinnaird College for Women (Pakistan).

For the past several years, I have been studying Islam, in particular, how Muslims interpret and live it.  In my earlier work, I proposed a Qur'anic hermeneutics that allows Muslims to argue on behalf of sexual equality and against patriarchy from within a scriptural framework. These days, I am studying Qur'anic views of difference with the intent, partly, of defining a theology of mutual recognition based on scriptural teachings. Among my publications are three books (Islam, Muslims, and the U.S.: Essays on Religion and Politics, "Believing " in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an, and Democracy, Nationalism, and Communalism: The Colonial Legacy in South Asia; a monograph (Re-Understanding Islam: A double critique), and several book chapters and journal articles. For a full list, please see my c.v.

I've been invited to present my work on the Qur'an in several countries (Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands) and it has also been translated into Bengali, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Urdu.