Zekeria Ahmed Salem is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Director of the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) in the Program of African Studies. He specializes in Islam and politics in Africa in comparative perspective. His research engages contemporary academic debates regarding religion and politics, especially the interplay in contemporary African societies of a variety of issues such as: the state, religious authority, race, social hierarchies, identity politics, Islamic knowledge and political power.
He is the author of Prêcher dans le Desert: Islam, Politique et Changement Social en Mauritanie (published by Karthala, Paris, in 2013, with an English translation forthcoming as Preaching in the Desert: Islam, Politics and Social Change in Mauritania) and the editor of Trajectoires d’un Etat-Frontière. Espaces, Evolutions Politiqiues et Transformations Sociales en Mauritanie (Dakar, Council for The Development of Social Research In Africa, Book Series: 2004).
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