Hamid Algar (born 1940) is a British-American Professor Emeritus of Persian studies at the Faculty of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He writes on Persian and Arabic literature and contemporary history of Iran, Turkey, the Balkans and Afghanistan. He served on the UC Berkeley faculty for 45 years (from 1965 to 2010). Algar remains an active scholar and his research has concentrated on the Islamic history of the Perso-Turkish world, with particular emphasis on Iranian Shi'ism during the past two centuries and the Naqshbandi Sufi order.[1][2] Algar is a Shia Muslim.[3][4]
Algar, who was born in England, first converted to Sunni Islam and later chose to follow Shia Islam. He has also translated books written by contemporary political Shiite theologians, like Ruhollah Khomeini's book Velayat-e Faqih and books written by Ali Shariati, Murteza Mutahhari and Mahmoud Taleqani.[5] For his enthusiastic promotion of Khomeinism as well as his heroic admiration for Ayatollah Khomeini, National Review dubbed him as "Khomeini’s Favorite American".[6][7][8][9]
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