Edmund Husain
Senior Fellow
Dr. Ed Husain is a British-born writer and political advisor who has worked with leaders and governments across the world. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Dr. Husain was a senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (2015-2018). From 2018-2021 he undertook his doctoral studies on Western philosophy and Islam — a refutation of the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis — under the direction of the eminent English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton. While at CFR during his first stint (2010-2015), at the height of the Arab uprisings, Husain's policy innovation memo led to the US-directed creation of a Geneva-based global fund to help counter terrorism.
Husain's ancestors are from the Hadramaut region in modern-day Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula. He speaks Arabic and has travelled to more than forty countries. His parents arrived in London, England in 1953, and Husain moved to Washington DC to teach at Georgetown University in 2021.
Dr. Husain is the author of The Islamist (Penguin, 2007), The House of Islam: A Global History (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Among the Mosques (Bloomsbury, 2021). His books have been widely reviewed in the global press. His writing has been shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize. A regular contributor to the Spectator magazine, he has appeared on the BBC, Fox, CNN, and has written for the Telegraph, The Times (of London), New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is researching his next book, a modern biography of the Arabian Prophet to be published in 2027.