Bernard Haykel
Bernard Haykel is professor of Near Eastern Studies and the director of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University. He has been described as "the foremost secular authority on the Islamic State’s ideology" by journalist Graeme C.A. Wood.
Early life
Haykel was born to a Lebanese Christian father and a Polish Jewish mother, he grew up in Lebanon and the United States. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Yemen in 1992–1993. He obtained a bachelor's degree in International Politics at Georgetown University, MA, M Phil and, in 1998, Ph.D. in Islamic and Middle-Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford.Career
After working as a post-doctoral research fellow at Oxford University in Islamic Studies, he joined New York University in 1998 as associate professor before taking up his post at Princeton. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 2010. He is a member of the board of directors of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.In addition to English, Haykel is fluent in Arabic and French and has taught advanced level Arabic at Georgetown, Oxford and Princeton.
According to BBC News, Haykel speaks regularly to Mohammed bin Salman, the authoritarian ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Personal life
Haykel is married to Navina Najat Haidar, daughter of the former Indian Foreign Secretary Salman Haidar.Books
- Saudi Arabia in Transition; Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change. co-editor with Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix.
- Revival and Reform in Islam: the Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkānī.