Leila Ahmed | |
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ليلى أحمد | |
Born | Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt | 29 May 1940
Education | University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD) |
Occupations |
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Awards | Grawemeyer Award in Religion for A Quiet Revolution |
Leila Ahmed (Arabic: لیلى أحمد; born 29 May 1940)[1] is an Egyptian-American scholar of women's studies and religion.[2] In 1992 she published her book Women and Gender in Islam, which is regarded as a pioneering historical analysis of the position of women in Arab Muslim societies.[3][4] She became the first professor of women's studies in religion at Harvard Divinity School in 1999, and has held the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity chair since 2003. She was later awarded the Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity in 2020.[5]
Ahmed was professor of women's studies and Near Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst