Aziz al-Azmeh

{{Short description|Syrian historian and scholar of Islam}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = | name = Aziz Al-Azmeh | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = عزيز العظمة | native_name_lang = Arabic | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1947|07|24}} | birth_place = Damascus, Syria | region = | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = Academic, author, educator | period = | known_for = | title = | boards =  | awards = 1993: The Republican Order of Merit | website = | education = | alma_mater =  | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | influences =  | era = | discipline =  | sub_discipline =  | workplaces =  | doctoral_students = | notable_students =  | main_interests = Islamic culture, Islamic history | notable_works = ''Islams and Modernities'' | notable_ideas = | influenced =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }} '''Aziz Al-Azmeh''' (Arabic: عزيز العظمة; born July 24, 1947) is a Syrian academic and Professor Emeritus at the Department of History, Central European University, Vienna, Austria. Among other books and papers, he published ''Islams and Modernities''. In May 1993, he received the Republican Order of Merit, for services to Arab culture, from former President of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |article=AZMEH (Aziz, Malak) |encyclopedia=Who's Who in the Arab World, 2007–2008 |year=2007 |place=Beirut |publisher=Publitec |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=NHCQBAFMwawC&pg=PA136|page=136|isbn=9783110930047 }}</ref>

==Early life and education== Aziz Al-Azmeh was born on July 24, 1947, in Damascus, Syria. He received a D.Phil. in Oriental Studies from St Antony's College, Oxford (supervised by Albert Hourani), having previously attended the University of Tübingen, and the University of Pennsylvania.<ref name="Archived_Older"/>

==Career== He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses (though latterly focusing on postgraduate teaching and research) across the whole thematic range of Arab and Islamic historical studies, medieval and modern, at the Central European University, the American University of Beirut, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Exeter, Cornell University, the University of Oxford, the University of California, Berkeley (where he was the Sultan Visiting Professor), Georgetown University, and more recently at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations of the Aga Khan University.<ref name="Bochum_Archived_2007">{{Cite web |url=http://www.khk.ceres.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/people/details/aziz-al-azmeh/ |title=Ruhr-Universität Bochum - Aziz Al-Azmeh, Prof. Dr. |access-date=2011-07-20 |archive-date=2016-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160810030240/http://www.khk.ceres.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/people/details/aziz-al-azmeh/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In the Fall of 1998, Aziz Al-Azmeh was a Residential Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala, Sweden.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Former Fellows SCAS |url=https://www.swedishcollegium.se/fellows/former-fellows/all-former-fellows }}</ref>

He has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the ''Medieval History Journal''<ref name="Archived_Older"/> and the ''Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies''.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}} In addition, Al-Azmeh has been invited to various international conferences, talks, seminars, lectures and symposia.<ref name="Archived_Older">{{Cite web |title=aziz-cv |url=http://www.colbud.hu/mult_ant/Thyssen-Participants/AzizAl-Azmeh.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071108233108/http://www.colbud.hu/mult_ant/Thyssen-Participants/AzizAl-Azmeh.htm |archive-date=2007-11-08 |access-date=2025-07-07 |website=www.colbud.hu}}</ref>

His book ''Islams and Modernities'' was released on October 17, 1996. The book explores the history of interaction between Islam and Europe, analyzing myths about those interactions created by Orientalist and Islamist viewpoints.<ref>{{Citation | last =al-Azmeh | first =Aziz | author-link =Aziz al-Azmeh | title =Islams and Modernities | place = | publisher =Verso Books | date = October 17, 1996 | language =English | isbn = 9781859841068 }}</ref> A new version was released on August 7, 2009, also examining "the discourse surrounding Islamism and irrationalism after 9/11." ''The Guardian'' wrote that "''Islams and Modernities'' raises urgent questions that are central to the concerns of the contemporary world.”<ref name="PenguinRandomHouse_Islams">{{cite web|title=Penguin Random House|url=http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/232558/islams-and-modernities-by-aziz-al-azmeh/9781844673858/}}</ref> '' New Statesman'' wrote that “Aziz Al-Azmeh is perhaps the most original thinker on these themes in Britain today."<ref name="PenguinRandomHouse_Islams"/>

In 2002 he became a professor at the Central European University in Budapest. In 2010, he was then a visiting research fellow at the university in the School of History and Interdisciplinary Historical Studies.<ref name="Bochum_Archived_2007"/>

==Awards and honors ==

*1993: The Republican Order of Merit, for services to Arab culture, was conferred by the former President of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in May.<ref name="Archived_Older"/> *2005: An international conference was held at the Central European University, Budapest, to mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of book ''Islams and Modernities''. The proceedings, papers delivered and transcript of discussions, are in preparation for publication.

==Bibliography==

* ''Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies'' (1986) * ''Ibn Khaldun: An Essay in Reinterpretation'' (1990) * ''Islams and Modernities'' (1993, second edition: 1996, third edition: 2009) * ''Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities'' (1997) * ''The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography'' (2007) * ''The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People'' (2014)

==See also== *History of Islam

== References == <references/>

==External links== * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAfLgTGWrgA Aziz Al-Azmeh: Is Islamism the Arab Destiny?] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvhY-9zBPWA The Relevance and Irrelevance of Muslim Political Traditions] * [https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/people/aziz-al-azmeh Podcast] at Oxford University * [https://people.ceu.edu/aziz_al-azmeh?_gl=1*1tx36fb*_ga*MTQ2NTE2Njk1LjE3MjkwODE0Njg.*_ga_W8Y67XH3B7*czE3NjE5MDA4ODMkbzIzMSRnMSR0MTc2MTkwOTY5NCRqNTEkbDAkaDA.*_ga_4Y7JHXJYK1*czE3NjE5MDA4OTMkbzEwOSRnMSR0MTc2MTkwOTY5NCRqNjAkbDAkaDA. Aziz Al-Azmeh | CEU People] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071108233108/http://www.colbud.hu/mult_ant/Thyssen-Participants/AzizAl-Azmeh.htm Archived resume from 2007]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Azmeh, Aziz}} Category:1947 births Category:Syrian Muslims Category:Syrian people of Turkish descent Category:Syrian academics Category:Academics from Damascus Category:Living people Category:Historians of Islam Category:Muslim reformers Category:Academic staff of Central European University Category:University of Tübingen alumni Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:Academic staff of Kuwait University Category:Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford Category:Critics of Islamism Category:Critics of postmodernism Category:Syrian expatriates in the United States Category:Syrian expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Syrian expatriates in Kuwait Category:Syrian expatriates in Hungary Aziz Category:Muslim scholars of Islamic studies

Aziz al-Azmeh

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