32 Facts About Ed Husain

Ed Husain was born on 25 December 1974 and is a British author and a professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University.

Ed Husain was previously a senior fellow and director of the Atlantic Council's N7 Initiative which is focused on peace in the Middle East and broadening and strengthening relationships between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbours.

Ed Husain has held senior fellowships at think tanks in London and New York, including at the Council on Foreign Relations at the height of the Arab uprisings.

Ed Husain was a senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Ed Husain is the author of The Islamist, The House of Islam: A Global History, and Among the Mosques.

Ed Husain's writing has been shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize.

Ed Husain was born and brought up in the East End of London, in a Bengali Muslim family.

Ed Husain's father was born in British India to a family connected to the Yemeni saint Shah Jalal.

Ed Husain's father arrived in the United Kingdom in 1961, and started a small Indian takeaway business in Limehouse.

Ed Husain attended the Brick Lane Mosque in his early years with his parents, who followed a spiritual form of Islam based on Sufi traditions.

Ed Husain has a BA in history from the University of North London, and later studied at SOAS, University of London, where he completed an MA in Middle Eastern Studies.

Ed Husain then moved to Damascus with his wife in 2002, where he worked for the British Council teaching English whilst studying Arabic at the University of Damascus.

Ed Husain later joined the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where he was Senior Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies.

Ed Husain focused on trends within Arab Islamism, perceptions of the West in the Arab world, and US policy toward the Middle East, writing broadly on the Arab Spring and its implications for the region and foreign involvement.

Ed Husain was appointed to the Freedom of Religion or Belief Advisory Group of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2014.

In 2017, Ed Husain joined the Wilson Center as a Global Fellow in its Middle East Program.

Ed Husain was a Senior Fellow at Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society in London, where he ran the 'Islam, the West, and Geopolitics' research project.

Ed Husain was appointed as a professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University in 2021 and a senior fellow and director of the Atlantic Council's N7 Initiative in 2023.

Since joining Civitas, Ed Husain has commented on Islam and society, the British political system, the prospect of a Middle East Federation, and the role of Saudi Arabia in the geopolitics of Islam.

Ed Husain has appeared on CNN, Fox, NPR, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and has been published in the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, National Review, Spectator, Telegraph and Jewish Chronicle, among other media outlets.

Ed Husain believes that Islam is fully compatible with Western democratic society, stating that the Quran does not teach a compulsion to faith or the murder of unbelievers.

Ed Husain has espoused this view in numerous commentaries, articles, and books, stating:.

Ed Husain has urged Muslims in the West to respond to the challenge of Islamic extremism.

Ed Husain has called for a federal union of Middle Eastern states along the lines of the European Union in order to defeat religious sectarianism in the region and promote economic and political cooperation.

Ed Husain is a noted critic of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses and role in promoting Islamist extremism worldwide.

Ed Husain has spoken against isolating Saudi Arabia politically, arguing that the rise of Iranian theocracy in the Middle East requires ever closer alliances between the west and its Arab allies.

Ed Husain is opposed to the international boycott of Israel by activists, stating in The New York Times that:.

Ed Husain has sought to explain the theological pull of ISIL in the West through analyses of its fundamentalist ideological interpretations of Islam.

Ed Husain has urged western governments to take on a deeper understanding of its extremist worldview, arguing:.

However, Ed Husain argued against US military intervention in Syria, stating:.

Ed Husain has warned of the involvement of Al-Qaeda and like minded groups in the Syrian Civil War:.

Ed Husain is the author of three books: The Islamist, which was a finalist for the George Orwell prize for political writing, The House of Islam: A Global History, published in 2018, and Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, published in 2021.