# Malika Zeghal ## expand\_more #### Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Malika Zeghal is the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at Harvard University. She is also a member of the Committee on the Study of Religion and a Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy. Her research focuses on the interaction between Islam and politics in the modern Middle East. She is particularly interested in studying modern Muslim states and their religious institutions, as well as the intellectual and political genealogies of Islamist movements in the region. She also has an interest in modern Islamic intellectual history in the Middle East, Europe and North America. An alumna of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de la Rue d'Ulm (Paris, France), Malika Zeghal holds a PhD in Political Science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (1994). Before joining Harvard University in 2010, she was Associate Professor of the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is a Member of the Scientific Council of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Beit al-Hikma). Malika Zeghal has published a study of the Egyptian ulama of al-Azhar since the 1950s and of their various forms of engagement with politics (Gardiens de l'Islam. Les oulémas d'al-Azhar dans l'Egypte contemporaine \[Presses de Sciences Po, 1996\]). She has also published a volume on Islam and politics in contemporary Morocco (Islamism in Morocco: Religion, Authoritarianism, and Electoral Politics \[Markus Wiener, 2008\]), which highlights in particular the role of Shaykh Yassine's political mysticism in the Islamist political opposition to the Moroccan monarchy, andhas won the French Voices-Pen American Center Award. She has also edited a special issue of the Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée, Intellectuels de l'islam contemporain. Nouvelles générations, nouveaux débats \[123, 2008\], on contemporary liberal Muslim thought. Her most recent book ([The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691134369/the-making-of-the-modern-muslim-state) \[Princeton University Press, 2024\]) traces the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion in the Middle East and North Africa. With a team of graduate students in NELC, she is currently building a digital map of Islamic intellectual networks in the Maghrib and Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s. This project, called Afkar, is supported by a Grant from the Lasky-Barajas Dean’s Innovation Fund for Digital Arts and Humanities. [The Making of the Modern Muslim State](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691134369/the-making-of-the-modern-muslim-state) Princeton University Press (March 2024) ![Zeghal book](/sites/g/files/omnuum9396/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/aisp/files/zeghal_book.jpg?itok=Y2zKcCiJ) [Professor Malika Zeghal's Harvard Scholar Site](https://scholar.harvard.edu/malikazeghal) ### Courses [### RELIGION 2810/ISLAMCIV 218: Islamic Institutions - Middle East and Beyond: Modern Transformations and Debates (19th-21st centuries) ](https://locator.tlt.harvard.edu/course/colgsas-208008/2018/spring/19886) Instructor: Malika Zeghal This graduate seminar explores the transformation of Islamic institutions in the modern period, such as religious endowments (Awqaf), sharia courts, and Islamic education. We will engage with the historiography of these... [### Reading al-Manar in the Interwar Period ](https://courses.harvard.edu/detail?q=id:d_colgsas_2018_1_160403_001&returnUrl=search%3Ffq_coordinated_semester_yr%3Dcoordinated_semester_yr%253A%2522Sep%2520to%2520Dec%25202018%2520%2528Fall%2520Term%2529%2522%26q%3Dzeghal%26sort%3Dcourse_title%2520asc%26start%3D0%26rows%3D25) [### Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East ](https://courses.harvard.edu/detail?q=id:d_colgsas_2018_1_126908_001&returnUrl=search%3Ffq_coordinated_semester_yr%3Dcoordinated_semester_yr%253A%2522Sep%2Bto%2BDec%2B2018%2B%2528Fall%2BTerm%2529%2522%26q%3DIslam%26sort%3Dcourse_title%2520asc%26start%3D50%26rows%3D25) The course critically examines the ideologies and political strategies of twentieth century Islamist movements, as well as their origins and evolution. It will relate the emergence of organized Islamist movements in the first part of the twentieth century... Video News Events ## Video #### Mideast Newsreel: Malika Zeghal on Tunisia [**10/21/2014: Malika Zeghal**](https://islamicstudies.harvard.edu/file/968173) ## News [### New article by Professor Malika Zeghal: "The Shaping of the 1857 Security Pact in the Regency of Tunis" ](https://brill.com/view/journals/si/117/2/article-p275_3.xml) December 06, 2022 Abstract: This article examines the creation of the 1857 Security Pact ( ʿAhd al-amān) in the Regency of Tunis. This law is commonly viewed as having been drafted and imposed by the European powers as a replication of the Ottoman Tanẓīmāt and as having... ![M](/sites/g/files/omnuum9396/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/malika.jpg?itok=0VIrV0mF) ## Events [### MEBB Session V: Prospectus Day ](/event/mebb-session-v-prospectus-day?occ_id=0)December 2, 2019 | 6:00PM - 7:30PM EST | TBD In Person Speaker 1: Myriam Amri (PhD Candidate, Anthropology and CMES) Prospectus: TBC Speaker 2: Mitch Bacci (PhD Candidate, History and CMES) Prospectus: Narcotics and Public Health in the Late Ottoman and Interwar Eastern Mediterranean The Middle East Beyond... [### MEBB Session IV: The Prophet and the Profane: An Inquiry into the Boundaries of Prophetic Authority ](/event/mebb-session-iv-prophet-and-profane-inquiry-boundaries-prophetic-authority?occ_id=0)November 18, 2019 | 6:00PM - 7:30PM EST | TBD In Person Speaker: Rushain Abbasi (PhD Candidate, NELC) Chapter: The Prophet and the Profane: An Inquiry into the Boundaries of Prophetic Authority The Middle East Beyond Borders (MEBB) workshop aims to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars working on... [### MEBB Session III: Tunisian merchants and the Ottoman fez trade (1600-1800) ](/event/mebb-session-iii-tunisian-merchants-and-ottoman-fez-trade-1600-1800?occ_id=0)November 4, 2019 | 6:00PM - 7:30PM EST | TBD In Person Speaker: Youssef Ben Ismail (PhD Candidate, NELC) Chapter: Tunisian merchants and the Ottoman fez trade (1600-1800) The Middle East Beyond Borders (MEBB) workshop aims to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars working on the past and present of... [### MEBB Session II: Islamic Theology 101: Teaching the Basics in 15th-century Tlemcen ](/event/mebb-session-ii-islamic-theology-101-teaching-basics-15th-century-tlemcen?occ_id=0)October 21, 2019 | 6:30PM - 7:30PM EDT | TBD In Person Speaker: Caitlyn Olson (PhD Candidate, NELC) Chapter : Islamic Theology 101: Teaching the Basics in 15th-century Tlemcen The Middle East Beyond Borders (MEBB) workshop aims to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars working on the past and... [### MEBB Session I: Colonial Shari`a in Practice: Inheritance, Paternity, and Slavery in Moroccan Legal Pluralism ](/event/mbb-session-i-colonial-sharia-practice-inheritance-paternity-and-slavery-moroccan-legal?occ_id=0)October 7, 2019 | 6:00PM - 7:30PM EDT | TBD In Person Speaker: Ari Schriber (PhD Candidate, NELC) Chapter: Colonial Shari`a in Practice: Inheritance, Paternity, and Slavery in Moroccan Legal Pluralism The Middle East Beyond Borders (MEBB) workshop aims to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars... [### Middle East Beyond Borders Session VI ](/event/middle-east-beyond-borders-session-vi?occ_id=0)April 22, 2019 | 6:00PM - 7:30PM EDT | Barker Center 114 (12 Quincy St) In Person Speaker: Prof. Rosie Bsheer (Faculty, History & CMES) Paper circulated one week in advance, kindly email: or to obtain a copy and RSVP. See also:- [ Alwaleed Faculty ](/person/alwaleed-faculty)