Nariman Gasimoglu

Nariman Gasimoglu (Azerbaijani: Nəriman Qasımoğlu) is Dr. Gasimoglu is a renowned Koranic scholar and one of the leading intellectuals in Azerbaijan, who has immersed himself in scholarly and public discourse on democratization and the role of Islam in Azerbaijani society. In 2012-2013, he had an IIE-SRF fellowship at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where he collaborated with the Center for the Study of World Religions (Harvard Divinity Schools) and expanded his work on “Commonalities between the Bible and the Koran from Ecotheological Perspectives”, delivered a series of lectures for Harvard students and faculty.

In 2007, he was previously awarded an IIE-SRF fellowship at the Central European University in Budapest that allowed him to conduct research on “The Koran in Non-Arabic Languages: Linguistic and Theological Challenges” and to revise the first-ever Azerbaijani translation of the Koran.

His international academic experience also includes a Fulbright research fellowship at California State University, Northridge, and a visiting professorship at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, as well as participation in academic conferences in Europe, Central and South East Asia, North and South America.

After earning a Ph.D. in the Modern Political History of the Middle East from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Sciences in 1986, Dr. Gasimoglu quickly established himself as a preeminent analyst on Islamic thought and practice in the post-Soviet states, publishing widely on topics ranging from comparative theology to Palestinian political history in books, academic journals, and magazines. In addition, he has played a leading role in defending democracy, women’s rights, environmental stewardship and pluralism in Azerbaijan today, and is the founder of the Azerbaijan Center for Religion and Democracy, a non-governmental organization focused on democracy building, civil society development and countering fundamentalist currents amongst Azerbaijani youth. A colleague at the University of Baku lauds him as “one of the best, if not the best, Koranic scholar in the former Soviet Union” and “one of the very few barriers preventing the spread of fundamentalism in southern Russia and in Central Asia.”

Currently he is Professor of Philosophy at ADA University, Baku, Azerbaijan.

He is one of the rare Muslim scholars honored to address with tolerance messages to both Muslims and other religious communities in their own temples.

"The significance of Nariman’s research cannot be exaggerated. Both the Bible and the Koran lay upon humanity the ethical imperative of caring for God’s creation; The current crisis in humanity’s relationship with the earth provides a new setting for the dialogue between faiths, which may well bring to the fore fresh insights and may even eclipse old controversies. The conversation between me and Nariman… is a small sign of the possibilities and is characterized by the way we end each exchange by writing, ‘Your friend in faith’;" states James Jones, CBE, Bishop of Liverpool in one of his article The Child of Adam and the Future of the Earth: Letters Between a Christian Bishop and a Muslim Scholar. "The whole thrust behind what the author is trying to achieve: to use a proper understanding of environmental issues “to help adapt religions to modernity and thus get them back to their holy essence” , reads a citation about Dr. Gasimoglu’s research from the letter of Jonathan Porritt, CBE, British environmentalist, writer to James Jones, CBE, Bishop of Liverpool.

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