1. Akbar Ahmed currently is a professor of International Relations and holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University, School of International Service in Washington, DC Akbar Ahmed served as the Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland.
Akbar Ahmed currently is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Akbar Ahmed taught at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the Department of Anthropology.
In 2004 Akbar Ahmed was named District of Columbia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Akbar Ahmed served as the Iqbal Fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Akbar Ahmed has been called "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam" by the BBC.
Akbar Ahmed received the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz and Sitara-i-Imtiaz from the Pakistani government for academic distinction and the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in London.
Akbar Ahmed was awarded the inaugural Purpose Prize in 2006 alongside Judea Pearl and is frequently named in the annual book, The Muslim 500: The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims, and was named a 2015 Global Thought Leader by The World Post and the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.
Akbar Ahmed studied at Burn Hall School in Abbottabad from 1954 to 1959.
Akbar Ahmed graduated from University of the Punjab and University of Birmingham and later attended Cambridge University doing an MA.
In 1978, Akbar Ahmed graduated with a PhD in Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Akbar Ahmed was the founder and served as Director of the National Centre for Rural Development in Islamabad and a Director of the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, University Grants Commission in Pakistan.
In 1988 Akbar Ahmed became the Allama Iqbal Fellow at Selywn College, Cambridge for five years and by 1993 he was appointed as the first Muslim Fellow.
Akbar Ahmed was the first Pakistani to serve on the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Akbar Ahmed has held professorships at several North American educational institutions.
Akbar Ahmed taught at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the Department of Anthropology.
Akbar Ahmed was the First Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In 2004 Akbar Ahmed was named District of Columbia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Akbar Ahmed presented and narrated the six-part BBC TV series Living Islam and authored the accompanying book of the same name.
Later, Akbar Ahmed served as Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1999 to 2000.
Akbar Ahmed has conducted anthropological fieldwork with Pashtuns in Afghanistan, undertaken comparative studies of Islamic social customs in Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and researching global Islam alongside its impacts on contemporary society.
Akbar Ahmed has criticized some anthropologists for studying "Muslim groups without reference to the Islamic framework".
Akbar Ahmed has authored many articles and more than a dozen books that have won awards such as Discovering Islam which became the basis for a six-part BBC TV series called Living Islam.
Akbar Ahmed has written a biography of Muhammad Jinnah, Pakistan's first Governor General.
Akbar Ahmed has written plays like Noor and The trial of Dara Shikoh which have been published and staged for audiences.
Akbar Ahmed's publications have been translated into other languages such as Indonesian and Chinese.
Akbar Ahmed has been engaged in a series of public interfaith dialogues across the US and abroad with Professor Judea Pearl, father of deceased reporter Daniel Pearl focusing on divisions between Muslims and the West and between Jews and Muslims.
Akbar Ahmed has been appointed as a Trustee of the World Faiths Development Dialogue by the Archbishop of Canterbury and has received the 2002 Free Speech Award from the Muslim Public Affairs Council based in Washington DC.
Akbar Ahmed has received accusations of being "a Zionist conspirator" and close to the West however he has felt that "dialogue, harmony, communication and debate" are for Islam and the West the key issues of engagement.
Akbar Ahmed has been interviewed by the BBC, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, "Think Tank," NBC Nightly News, CNN, CBS, Fox News, and other media organisations.
Akbar Ahmed has served as an advisor to President George W Bush and Prince Charles on Islam.
Akbar Ahmed has given lectures worldwide in places such as the US Congressional retreat in Greenbrier, West Virginia, the National Defense University in Washington DC, the State Department and the House of Lords in London.