Dr. Feryal Salem

Dr. Feryal Salem is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, as well as Director of the Master of Divinity in Islamic Studies and Muslim Chaplaincy programs at American Islamic College. Her research interests include Islamic philosophy and theology in the post-classical period, interfaith dialogue, and the development of Muslim thought in the contemporary era as it came into conversation with aspects of modernity. Dr. Salem is the author of The Emergence of Early Sufi Piety and Sunnī Scholasticism: ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak and the Formation of Sunni Identity in the Second Islamic Century (2016) published by Brill in its “Islamic History and Civilization” series. She also published Isagoge: A Primer in Classical Logic in which she translated and wrote a lengthy commentary on Athir al-Din al-Abhari’s a foundational treatise used for understanding classical Islamic texts. She was recently named one of “25 Influential American Muslims” by CNN for her work in higher education. Dr. Salem serves on a number of professional boards across the country and regularly travels internationally to engage in scholarship on Islam with academics from a range of diverse institutions.

Dr. Salem previously taught at Hartford Seminary where she was Assistant Professor of Islamic Scriptures and Co-Director of its Islamic Chaplaincy Program. She received her Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.