Professor Yasir Suleiman CBE

Professor Yasir Suleiman is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. He is also His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge, Professorial Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE). He is also Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Director of the Prince Alwaleed Centre of Islamic Studies at Cambridge. Before taking up his Chair at Cambridge, Professor Suleiman held the Iraq Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh (1990-2007). While at Edinburgh, he also served as Head of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Head of the Planning Unit of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Acting Head of the Department of Japanese Studies, Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of the Arab World and Islam, Convener of Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and Head of the School of Language, Literatures and Cultures. Professor Suleiman has served as Vice-President and Chair of Council of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES, 1993-5), Trustee of the Council for British Research in the Levant (2002-5), Member of the College Lay Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physician in Edinburgh (2003-2007) and Member of the Advisory Board of Naturalisation and Integration, Scotland (2006-2009). He serves as Judge of the British-Kuwaiti Book Prize, Saif Ghobashi Prize for Arabic Literature in Translation (2010-2011) and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (a joint Centre of the Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and Manchester).  Professor Suleiman has lectured internationally and published numerous works including: A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East, The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Tal’liil and Living Islamic History. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book series.