Head of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies; Associate Professor of Arabic Literature & Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies
Founding Chair, Council for Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies
Coordinator of Arabic Studies

Professor Souad T. Ali is Head of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies, Founding Chair of the ASU Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies; Coordinator of Arabic Studies; Associate Professor of Arabic Literature and Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC). She is simultaneously an Affiliate Graduate Faculty in English, Women and Gender Studies, Religious Studies, and Justice and Social Inquiry; as well as an Affiliate Faculty in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, African and African-American Studies, Center for the Study or Race and Democracy, Institute for Humanities Research, and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A Scholar with international recognition, Dr. Ali is a Recipient of the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award

A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ali is the author of A Religion, Not A State: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (University of Utah Press 2009), The Road to Two Sudans, an edited volume of which she is the lead editor, has been published internationally by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2014). Dr. Ali’s third book in progress is Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Positions: Political & Social Change.  Her other books in progress include, Subjugated Voices (with Dr. Emily Silverman).. She published over 25 scholarly articles (several of which have been translated into different languages); and contributed over 100 scholarly conference presentations.

Dr. Ali has been unanimously elected as President of the Sudans Studies Association of North America (SSA) (2017-2019); Board Member and Arizona Representative, as well as the past- President of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region (AAR/WR).  She also represents ASU on the Governing Board of the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA) in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard. Executive Committee Member of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS), Cairo, Egypt and Bremen Germany.

Professor Ali has taught at the American University of Kuwait, the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and Hiram College (Ohio).

Professor Ali received a B.A. with distinction from the University of Khartoum and the Polytechnic of North London, a Masters with distinction from Brigham Young University, and a Ph.D. with honors from the University of Utah (2004) where she studied under Dr. Bernard G. Weiss.  Learn more.