United States
Professor, Islamic studies
1900-Present
Dr. Zainab Alwani is the Founding Director of the Islamic Studies program at Howard University School of Divinity (HUSD). She is the Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the chair of the Religious Studies Master of Arts program at HUSD. She is an Islamic scholar, researcher and community activist. Dr. Alwani / is also the first female jurist to serve on the board of the Fiqh Council of North America and currently serves as the Council’s Vice-Chair. She is a member and a board member of various national organizations including, Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights KARAMAH, and the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Alwani is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Islamic Faith and Practice. Her research focuses on Quranic studies, Islamic jurisprudence, the relationship between civil and religious law in the area of family, women and gender, and inter-religious relations. Currently, Dr. Alwani is working on a groundbreaking project regarding orphan care, the Orphan Care Project. The goal is to provide knowledge and scholarship from an Islamic perspective as well as alert the community to this pressing issue. As the Program Director of the Fiqh Forum on Orphan Care, she is calling for orphan care to become a priority of the Muslim community
