Department of History

Faiz Ahmed (Ph.D., UC Berkeley, J.D., UC Law San Francisco) is a historian of the Ottoman Empire and modern Middle East. Trained as a lawyer and social historian, Ahmed’s primary research interests are the late Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan, and the greater Islamicate world; legal and constitutional history; and diasporic communities tied to the amorphous region we call the Middle East. From the Khyber Pass to the Bosphorus Strait, and the Suez Canal to New England, Ahmed’s core research engages questions of human mobility, travel, and migration; students, scholars, and networks of expertise; and the intersections of law, citizenship, humanitarianism, and diplomacy.

Ahmed’s first book Afghanistan Rising: Islamic Law and Statecraft between the Ottoman and British Empires was awarded the American Historical Association’s John F. Richards Prize in 2018. Pivoting to the western hemisphere, his current book project Ottoman Americana: The Late Ottoman Empire and the Early United States (under contract with Princeton University Press) examines the social, economic, and legal underpinnings of Ottoman-U.S. ties from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, as seen from Ottoman perspectives. Ahmed has published articles in journals of law, history, and Middle East Studies, including Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; Global Jurist; International History Review; International Journal of Middle East Studies; Iranian Studies; Journal of Ottoman Studies; Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association; Law and History Review; and Perspectives on History. Featured interviews can be found on national radio, history channels, and local news including Borderlines, Ottoman History Podcast, NPR’s Throughline, ABC6 RI News, and the Boston Globe. Dr. Ahmed is also co-organizer with Brown University colleagues Michael Vorenberg, Rebecca Nedostup, and Emily Owens of the Brown Legal History Workshop and Brown Legal Studies collaborative.

Note to colleagues, students, and organizations outside Brown University: By reason of prioritizing commitments to my current students and colleagues at Brown, I may not reply to all external queries in a prompt fashion. If you do not receive a response to your query within ten days, please assume I cannot accept your invitation or request at this time. Thank you for your interest and understanding. Sincerely, Prof. Faiz Ahmed