Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid (born 1983) is an American author and political scientist who is currently a columnist at the Washington Post.^[1] From 2023 to 2024, he was a member of the Editorial Board of the Post. Previously, he was a longtime senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at the Atlantic.^[2] He also holds the position of research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary. This appointment is the first time a Muslim scholar has been hired in the school's history.^[3] He has been called a "prominent thinker on religion and politics" in the New York Times^[4] and was named as one of "The world's top 50 thinkers" in 2019 by Prospect Magazine.^[5] He is known for coining the phrase "Islamic exceptionalism" to describe Islam's resistance to secularization and outsized role in public life. The phrase has come under some criticism.^[6][7]

Early life and education

Hamid was born in Pennsylvania to a Egyptian family.^[8][9] A Marshall Scholar,^[10] Hamid completed his doctoral degree in politics at Oxford University in 2010. His dissertation was titled Democrats without Democracy: the Unlikely Moderation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan.^[11] Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.^[12]

Hamid was a Hewlett Fellow at the Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and a Fulbright Fellow in Jordan, researching Islamist participation in the democratic process, and a research fellow at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, where he conducted research on the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordanian government.^[12]

Books

• Felbab-Brown, Vanda; Trinkunas, Harold; Hamid, Shadi (2018). Militants, Criminals and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8157-3189-4.^[13]
• Hamid, Shadi; McCants, William, eds. (2017). Rethinking political Islam. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-064919-7. OCLC 960276884.^[14]
• Hamid, Shadi (2016). Islamic Exceptionalism: How the struggle over Islam is reshaping the world. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-06101-0. OCLC 933446666.^[15]
• Hamid, Shadi (2014). Temptations of Power: Islamists and illiberal democracy in a new Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-931405-8. OCLC 870994390.^[16]
• Hamid, Shadi (2023). The problem of democracy: America, the Middle East, and the rise and fall of an idea. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-757946-6.

Wisdom of Crowds (podcast)

The Wisdom of Crowds podcast started in 2019, with Hamid as a co-host.^[17][18]

Reception

Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize.^[19] Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs "Best Book of 2014."^[20]