Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid is an American author and a senior fellow in Brookings Institution. He is also acontributing writer at The Atlantic. He is known for coining the phrase "Islamic exceptionalism," to describe Islam's resistance to secularization and outsized role in public life, although this has come under some criticism.

A Marshall Scholar, Hamid completed his doctoral degree in politics at Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Islamist political behavior in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Hamid was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and a Fulbright Fellow in Jordan, researching Islamist participation in the democratic process, and a research fellow at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, where he conducted research on the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordanian government.

He is the author of three books and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The New Republic. He also regularly appears on television, including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and PBS.

Hamid is the author ofIslamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World (St. Martin's Press), which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize. He is also co-editor with Will McCants of Rethinking Political Islam (Oxford University Press) and co-author of Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder (Brookings Institution Press). His first book, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East (Oxford University Press), was named a Foreign Affairs "Best Book of 2014."