October 5th, 2018 – New research has definitively overturned the mistaken notion that the late medieval Islamic world was a period of intellectual stagnation. Particularly in the eighteenth century, Muslim scholars from around the world interacted with each other and participated in a shared discourse concerning the verification of knowledge.
Zachary Wright is associate professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar, with joint appointments in history and religious studies. Wright received his PhD (history) from Northwestern University, with a dissertation focusing on the history of Islamic knowledge transmission in West Africa. He also has an MA in Arabic studies, Middle East history, from the American University in Cairo, and a BA in history from Stanford University.
He teaches classes on Islam in Africa, modern Middle East history, African history, Islamic intellectual history, and Islam in America. His book publications includeJihad of the Pen: the Sufi Literature of West Africa (co-authored with Rudolph Ware and Amir Syed, American University in Cairo Press, 2018), Living Knowledge in West African Islam: the Sufi Community of Ibrahim Niasse (Brill, 2015), and On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Tijani and the Tariqa Muhammadiyya (AAII & Faydah Books, 2005, 2015).