Dr. Ali Altaf Mian

Ali Altaf Mian received his B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in English from the University of Louisville, and his Ph.D. from the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. His research areas include Islam in South Asia, the history of classical Islamic theology, mysticism, and legalism (especially the Hanafi Law School), Qur'anic studies, Hadith studies, gender and sexuality in contemporary Islam, religion and modernity (with particular emphasis on how religious traditions changed in and through European colonialism), as well as method and theory in the study of religion (particularly the invocation of psychoanalytical theory for interpreting religious ideas, rituals, and institutions).