Azim Nanji - UK
Aga Khan University
Azim Nanji serves currently as Special Advisor to the Provost at the Aga Khan University. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, Canada.
Prior to that, Azim Nanji served as Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and lectured on Islam in the Department of Religious Studies. He served as the Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London UK from 1998 - 2008. He was a Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at the University of Florida and has held academic and administrative appointments at various American and Canadian universities.
At the American Academy of Religion, Azim Nanji has served as co-Chair of the Islam section and on the Editorial Board of the Academy’s Journal as well as Associate Editor of the Encyclopaedia of Religion.
Within the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), he serves as a Member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the Aga Khan Award for Music. In addition, Professor Nanji is a Member of AKDN’s Higher Education Forum and the Madrasa-based Early Childhood Education Programme in East-Africa.
Azim Nanji is author, co-author and editor of several books and has contributed numerous shorter studies and articles on religion, Islam, and Ismailism in journals and collective volumes. Some of his books include The Nizari Ismaili Tradition (1976), The Muslim Almanac (1996), The Historical Atlas of Islam (with M Ruthven, 2004) and The Dictionary of Islam (with R Nanji, 2008).
