Hussein Rashid is a PhD candidate in Harvard University's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. His dissertation focuses on racial and ethnic self-identification in South Asian immigrant communities in the US. He has passed qualifying exams in Urdu Language and Literature, Indo-Muslim cultures, Islam in America, and Islamic Civilizations with a focus on Shi'i thought. He completed a Masters in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, which focused on comparative Muslim-Hindu theologies in South Asia. He earned is BA from Columbia College of Columbia University with majors in Biology and Middle Eastern and [South] Asian Languages and Cultures.
Hussein has worked in several positions that affect the South Asian and Muslim majority worlds. During 2003 he worked with the Harvard Islamic Legal Studies Program's Afghan Legal History Project to create position papers on the draft Afghan constitution. He also advised a 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate’s foreign policy team on the religious issues in Iraq. He then consulted for a South Asia PAC. In 2006 he was named one of the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. His current research interests are on the representation of Muslims in graphic novels. He is an occasional speaker for the Interfaith Alliance, Faith in Public Life, and a teacher at
St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. He blogs at
Islamicate,
The Devil's Advocate and
Talk Islam. You can find out more about him at
husseinrashid.com.