WASHINGTON, DC – Sherman A. Jackson, also known as Abdul Hakim Jackson, is an American scholar who changed the way to study Islam.
Raised in Philadelphia, the American Muslim Scholar converted to Islam and soon began a deep study of its traditions and laws.
He was formerly the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Visiting Professor of Law and Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan.
After academic stops in Cairo, Egypt, and Michigan, Jackson is now the Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California and co-founder of the American Learning Institute for Muslims.
For decades, the experiences of African-American Muslims were largely unknown or ignored. But through lectures and books like “Islam and the Blackamerican,” Sherman Jackson has resurrected and unpacked their history, explaining how these forgotten stories are essential to understanding Islam in America.
Jackson is listed by the Religion News writers Foundation’s Religion Link as among the top ten experts on Islam in America and was named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
He is the author of several books, including Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihâb al-Dîn al-Qarâfî (E.J. Brill, 1996), On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî’s Faysal al-Tafriqa (Oxford, 2002), Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection (Oxford, 2005) and Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (Oxford, 2009).