Professor Ihsan Yilmaz is Research Chair of Islamic Studies and Intercultural Dialogue at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His research is focused on Islam-state-society relations in Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt and Central Asia along with research into political participation and legal pluralism in Muslim minority communities, particularly in the United Kingdom and Australia. Professor Yilmaz is one of the Muslim World’s leading social scientists, especially on Islam, secularism, Muslim minorities in the West and Islamic legal pluralism. His work appeared in international scholarly prestigious journals such as British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Middle East Journal, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Muslim World, Journal for Islamic Studies, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs and Third World Quarterly.
Professor Yilmaz’s much-cited book “Muslim Laws, Politics and Society in Modern Nation States: Dynamic Legal Pluralism in England, Turkey and Pakistan (Routledge 2005, reprinted 2016)” has been a pathbreaker in the study of unofficial Islamic legal pluralism in secular nation-states. He has been invited by several eminent thinks tanks, universities and governmental bodies in many parts of the world as either key note speaker, guest lecturer or expert witness in areas related to his expertise.
He was professor of political science at Istanbul Fatih University (2008-2016), lecturer in law, social sciences and politics at SOAS, University of London (2001-2008) where he taught “Islamic Law and Society”, “Legal Systems of Asia and Africa” and “Turkish Politics” at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Before SOAS, he was a fellow at Center for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford (1999-2001) where he worked on Muslim political participation in the UK and also on neo-ijtihad by young Muslim micro-mujtahids.
Professor Yilmaz is currently supervising 7 PhD theses at Deakin on topics such as construction of Ulama authority, Muslim Higher Educational Institutions, Transnational Influences on the Identity Formation, Islamic law of Western Muslim minorities (fiqh al aqalliyat), Turkish state and transnational diaspora politics, and equal citizenship in Islam.
Professor Yilmaz is also a public intellectual, communicating directly with the general public his ideas, opinions and research findings. He has been interviewed by several international TV and radio news channels and newspapers such as CNN International, Al Jazeera, ABC, China State TV, Russia Today, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, El Pais, Le Temps, Al Ahram, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He has also had frequent appearances on Turkish national TV on CNN Turk, Kanal D, Haberturk TV and Bugun TV. He was a columnist for the English-language daily newspaper Today’s Zaman where he wrote twice a week (2007-2016), wrote three times a week for Meydan Gazetesi (2015-2016), and had his weekly TV political debate programme on Samanyolu TV (2014-2015).
Professor Yilmaz continues to share his research and opinions on Islam, Turkish politics, Islamist populism and authoritarianism, the Muslim World and more through op-ed pieces that appear on The Conversation and the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter as well as his blog at www.immature.online. He is also very active on social media with more than 195,000 Twitter (@ihsanylmz) followers.
