Omid Safi

Omid Safi () is an American Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, where he is the Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center, and a columnist for On Being. Dr. Safi specializes in Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. He has served on the board of the Pluralism project at Harvard University and is the co-chair of the steering committee for the Study of Islam and the Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion. Before joining Duke University, Dr. Safi was a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. 2Life and work Omid Safi was born in Jacksonville, Florida and is of Iranian descent. He was raised in Iran and fled Tehran to the United States with his family in 1985. Safi is a leader of the progressive Muslim movement, which he defines as encompassing a number of themes: striving to realize a just and pluralistic society through a critical engagement with Islam, a relentless pursuit of social justice, an emphasis on gender equality as a foundation of human rights, and a vision of religious and ethnic pluralism. After September 11, 2001 Safi was publicly critical of the intolerance and violence among Muslims that inspired the attacks, reminding Muslims that their role lay in "calling both Muslims and Americans to the highest good of which we are capable." Safi's book Progressive Muslims (2003) contains a diverse collection of essays by and about progressive Muslim