Iranian thinker
Hossein Kamaly
Hossein KamalyIslamic Studies, Shia Studies, and the Intellectual History of Modern IranIranian
Life and Thought
Hossein Kamaly is an Iranian historian and scholar of Islam who holds the Imam Ali Chair in Shia Studies and Dialogue Among Islamic Schools of Thought at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace in the United States. Coming from a background in engineering and mathematics, he earned his PhD in history from Columbia University and taught for years at Columbia and Barnard College before joining Hartford. His research centers on the religious and intellectual history of Iran from the Qajar era to the Islamic Republic, as well as the history of women in Islam.
Hossein Kamaly followed an unconventional path before turning seriously to history and Islamic studies. In Iran he earned an undergraduate degree in computer hardware engineering from Shahid Beheshti University, then went on to complete a master's degree in mathematics, statistics, and operations research in the United States. During these years, alongside work as a programmer and simultaneous interpreter, he developed a serious interest in philosophy, logic, and probability theory — an interest that produced his Persian translation of Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery, first published in the early 1990s and reprinted many times since.
He later shifted toward history, earning his MA and PhD in history from Columbia University in New York. During and after his studies, he taught at Hunter and Brooklyn Colleges, at Columbia, and at Barnard College, and for a time served as an editor for Encyclopaedia Iranica. In 2019 he joined Hartford Seminary (later Hartford International University for Religion and Peace), and since 2021 he has held the Imam Ali Chair in Shia Studies and Dialogue Among Islamic Schools of Thought there.
His best-known book, God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (Columbia University Press, 2018), traces shifting religious and theological outlooks in Tehran from the Qajar period to the present, and has been described in academic reviews as a useful survey of this period's religious-intellectual transformations. His other book, A History of Islam in 21 Women (Oneworld Publications, 2019), retells the history of Islam through the lives of influential women within it. He has also published articles in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd edition, Brill) and Encyclopaedia Iranica, and his research interests include Quranic studies, Shia studies, interfaith interpretive traditions, theology, deontic logic, and intellectual history.
Sedanet articles about Hossein Kamaly
