Dr. Hassan Abbas is a Visiting Fellow at AMI and an internationally recognized scholar of security studies, extremism, and governance in the Muslim world. He currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard University’s Divinity School and as a Non-Resident Scholar with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a leading think tank dedicated to research and education on American Muslims. He is also a Trustee of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His current research focuses on developing effective narratives to counter political and religious extremism, as well as advancing rule-of-law reforms in developing states.

Previously, Dr. Abbas served as Professor and Department Chair at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University (2011–2019) and as the Distinguished Quaid-i-Azam Professor at Columbia University (2009–2011). His academic career includes prestigious fellowships at Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program and Program on Negotiation, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, the Asia Society in New York as a Bernard Schwartz Fellow, and the New America Foundation as a Carnegie Fellow.

Dr. Abbas is the author of several influential works, including The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (2021) and The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After the Americans Left, published by Yale University Press in 2023.

A frequent public intellectual and media commentator, Dr. Abbas has appeared on major national and international media platforms including CNN, Fox News, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, PBS NewsHour, Charlie Rose, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CBS, and NBC. His expertise has also been featured in leading print outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian.

During his visiting fellowship at Al-Mahdi Institute, Dr Hassan Abbas worked on his forthcoming book proposal for Yale University Press, The Daughter of the Prophet: The Life of Fatima Zahra, while actively engaging in scholarly exchange across the UK. Alongside consultations with Shaykh Arif Abdulhussain at AMI, a dedicated book workshop with AMI faculty and researchers, and meetings with Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad at Cambridge Muslim College and scholars at the Oxford Islamic Centre, Dr Abbas also delivered research seminars and recorded episodes of the Thinking Islam podcast, exploring themes from his published work on the legacy of Imam Ali and the evolving dynamics of the Taliban in contemporary Afghanistan.