Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

SFS faculty members Samer Shehata and Yvonne Haddad have both been selected as 2009 Carnegie Scholars for their compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam. Shehata, assistant professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) and Haddad, professor at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), will each receive two-year grants of up to $100,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to facilitate their research.

Shehata’s project, “Islamist Electoral and Parliamentary Participation: Egypt, Morocco and Kuwait,” will examine the rationale of Islamist parties that participate in elections in semi-authoritarian regimes, the reasons that they succeed, and the policies that they adopt once in power, as well as the impact that their rise has had on Middle Eastern politics.

Haddad’s research will focus on the history of Islamic thought. Her project, “Sayyid Qutb: From Village Boy to Islamist Martyr,” will analyze the impact that Western political and theological discourse has had on the development of Islamic scholarship and theology through a re-examination of the life and works of Qutb, an Egyptian whose writings provide the basis for the most radical interpretations of Islam.