Muqtedar Khan

Muqtedar Khan is an Indian-born teacher and researcher in political science and Islamic studies, and is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, and Director of the Islamic Studies Program, at the University of Delaware. He is a Fellow with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

Between 2003 and 2008, he was a Senior Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Fellow of the Alwaleed Center at Georgetown University in 2006-2007. He has been Chair of the Department of Political Science and Director of International Studies at Adrian College. He has been the President, Vice President and General Secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.

He has managed to be condemned by both left-wing and right-wing critics. In Znet, "Abu Dharr" wrote of him,

Perhaps the time has come to take him a bit more seriously because his project – rather the project that he is a willing pawn in – has become more insidious than initially thought. He seems to have realized that the projection of himself as part of "a growing number of young, moderate Muslim thinkers who believe themselves engaged in a battle for the soul of Islam" cannot succeed without getting some other American Muslim "moderates" on board. In order for him to be the "prince's advisor" and to become "the first Muslim Henry Kissinger," Khan must bring along some other "moderate Muslims." Because of the larger Islamophobic-induced fear amongst Muslim intellectuals in the U.S. today, Khan and his policywalla pals seem to have been left with few other attractive options at the moment.

Here I want to highlight some of Muqtedar Khan's writings to comment on his right-wing theatrics...

Militant Islam Monitor, however, says his invitation, from brigadier general Jerome Johnson at Rock Island Arsenal,

Mugtedar Khan was not only given access to a United States army installation,he was given the opportunity to propagandize about Islam at a "conference of military field commanders" and was given two coin medals by Brigadier General Jerome Johnson 'as a token of esteem'."

The article said he was justifying suicide bombings in Iraq, citing an ABC News report, but, in the report, Khan explains the bombers motivations from the bomber's perspective and but makes no moral judgment on it.

The deaths of their own families, the destruction of their homes -- all these are leading to frustration and anger and hopelessness, and they want the enemy to feel the same frustration and hopelessness, so they are resorting to this violence

Education

• Ph.D. in International Relations, Political Philosophy, and Islamic Political Thought, Georgetown University, 2000.