Dr. Mohammed El-Sayed Bushra

د. محمد السيد بشرى

Researcher. Educator. Editor.

Muftah

I currently serve as the Managing Editor of Muftah Magazine, a role which I have occupied since the magazine’s 2024 relaunch.Muftah is a biannual digital magazine that probes key issues at the intersections of religion, culture, and politics.Founded in 2010 as a global affairs digest, Muftah has become a home for critical commentary on sovereignty, spectacle, and the sacred.We value writing that moves past modern optimism and postmodern skepticism, and that explores the possibilities of the metamodern as an emerging framework.Since our relaunch, we have published three issues.

Muftah. Key Issues, Diverse Perspectives.

We have also since launched our podcast, Protean View, which I co-host, with a growing number of episodes featuring leading intellectuals.

Please support our work on our website or via Patreon.

Protean View. A Muftah Production.
Protean View. A Muftah Production.

Research

I am a scholar of the social, political, and intellectual history of contemporary Islam and Muslim societies in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and beyond whose scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from social and political theory and religious studies.I am particularly interested in the reception and rearticulation of classical Islamic traditions in modern and contemporary contexts.My first peer-reviewed article, on the role of a Central Asian refugee scholar in developing early Saudi anticommunist discourses in the Cold War, has been published in the December 2023 issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME). I have further articles and research manuscripts under review and in the works.I have presented my research at venues such as The University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and The Middle East Studies Association.

Journal Articles

  • Bushra, Mohammed El-Sayed. “Inshallah a Boy (film review).” Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 10, no. 2 (November 2025).

  • Fulco, Carmen, and Mohammed El-Sayed Bushra. “An Organizational Perspective on Fading System-ness: Insights from the Case of Ennahda in the post-Specialization Period (2016–2021).” Politics and Religion 18, no. 3 (September 2025): 323–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048325000070.

  • Bushra, Mohammed El-Sayed. “A Salafi Pioneer of Saudi Anti-Communism: Muhammad Sultan al-Ma’sumi al-Khujandi (1880–1961).” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 43, no. 3 (December 2023): 398–411. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-10892754.

  • [More articles coming soon].

Academic Presentations

  • “The Art of Critical Thinking in Islam,” Iqra Fellowship, Boston Islamic Seminary, Chelsea, MA, November 1, 2025.

  • “Leadership and Spiritual Lessons from the History of Islam in America,” Master’s in Islamic Religious Leadership Summer Retreat, Boston Islamic Seminary, North Andover, MA, August 7, 2025.

  • “Chair of several panels,” 4th International Critical Muslim Studies Conference: ReOrienting Resistance, University of Leeds, Istanbul, Turkey, May 30–June 1, 2025.

  • “Panelist: Laws and their others,” Pluralising Legalities conference, Otago Centre for Law & Society, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, August 9, 2024.

  • “Home-Grown Organic ICMA? Case Study of an ICMA-Like Approach in Contemporary Muslim Scholarship,” Isnād-cum-Matn Analysis (ICMA) as a Method in Contemporary Hadith Studies conference, Georgetown University and Charles Sturt University, Washington, DC and New South Wales, Australia, January 27–28, 2024.

  • “Discussant: Building the rule of law with religion: discussion of Shari’a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics with author Mark Massoud,” Otago Centre for Law & Society Seminars, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, March 10, 2023.

  • “A letter from Tokyo, a migrant to Mecca, and what it means to be Salafī,” Religion Seminar Series, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, May 5, 2022; MEISA Seminar Series, Middle East & Islamic Studies Aotearoa, June 23, 2022.

  • “Profile of an itinerant anti-communist Salafī: Muḥammad Sulṭān al-Maʿṣūmī al-Khujandī (1880-1961),” Inter-Asian Cold War Linkages workshop, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, November 12–13, 2021.

  • “Bureaucratizing Islam: Morocco and the War on Terror by Ann Marie Wainscott,” 2nd Annual Book Review Colloquium on Islamic and Middle East Studies, Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, October 11, 2018.

  • “Conceptual change through transformation of linguistic norms: tyranny in the Arab Muslim context,” Between Continuity & Change: Conceptualizing Slavery, Tyranny, Gender, and Tolerance in Islamic Thought & the Middle East panel, Middle East Studies Association 51st Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 18–21, 2017.

  • “Recalling the Caliphate by S. Sayyid,” 1st Annual Book Review Colloquium on Islamic and Middle East Studies, Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, October 12, 2017.

  • “Dissection of a digital debate with Dāʿish: Muḥammad al-Masʿarī vs. Turkī al-Binʿalī on tawḥīd, shirk, and ʿibādah,” Global Muslim Encounters: Homogenisation and Diversity across Time and Space conference, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, December 9–10, 2016.

Recent Public Scholarship

  • بشرى، محمد السيد. "بشائر ونذر التنوير: دور العقل في التحرير والهيمنة في النظرية النقدية لدى مدرسة فرانكفورت." أعواد قش. يناير ٢٢، ٢٠١٦. https://a3wadqash.com/?p=147.

Teaching

I have over a decade of teaching experience, having first been employed as a lecturer in 2009. I currently teach in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and at the Boston Islamic Seminary in Chelsea, MA, USA.

Courses

Boston Islamic Seminary, 2024—Present

  • IRL-523: History of Islamic Civilization

  • IRL-612: Islam in America

  • IRL 613: Religions in Contemporary America

University of Otago, 2022—Present

Lecturer

  • POLS-210: Politics of the Middle East

  • POLS 550: Comparative Regional Conflicts

  • RELS-220/320: Representing Islam

  • RELS-235/335: Religion, Law and Politics

Tutor

  • POLS-210: Politics of the Middle East

  • POLS-326: Politics of the Arabian Peninsula

  • RELS 244/344: Ancient Egypt: Magic and Mystery

Guest Lecturer

  • RELS-011: Introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam

  • POLS-210: Politics of the Middle East

  • POLS-218: Interventions, Peacekeeping and the Global South

  • POLS-326: Politics of the Arabian Peninsula

Georgetown University, 2013—2019

Teaching Associate, 2018 – 2019

  • ARAB-011: Intensive First Level Arabic I

  • ARAB-201: Introduction to Islamic Civilization

Teaching Assistant, 2013 – 2017

Content courses

  • ARAB-201: Introduction to Islamic Civilization

  • ARAB-366: Islam and Identity

  • ARAB-395: Revolutionary Culture

Language courses

  • ARAB-011: Intensive First Level Arabic I

  • ARAB-012: Intensive First Level Arabic II

  • PERS-011: Intensive First Level Persian I

  • ARAB-111: Intensive Intermediate Arabic I

  • ARAB-215: Intensive Advanced Arabic I

  • ARAB-216: Intensive Advanced Arabic II

Sudan University of Science and Technology, 2009

  • 400-level: Mechatronics

  • 500-level: Avionics Systems

Book

Published in 2018 by leading Arabic academic publisher the Arab Network for Research and Publishing, I am the translator and editor of استعادة الخلافة: تفكيك الاستعمار والنظام العالمي, the Arabic edition of Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonization and World Order (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2014), a pioneering work of decolonial social and political theory in the field of Critical Muslim Studies by Professor S. Sayyid of the University of Leeds.

Book Reviews and Engagement (Selection)

Freelance Editor and Translator

I have extensive experience providing editing, translation, transliteration, interpreting, and consulting services for clients in the publishing, academic, human rights, and legal sectors. Projects include Arabic-English translation and editing of published and forthcoming academic papers and monographs, as well as English-Arabic translation of legal documents and interpreting for court sessions.Sample of edited publications:

Past clients include:

  • Prof. S. Sayyid (University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy)

  • Prof. Benjamin Schonthal (University of Otago, School of Social Sciences)

  • Prof. Atef Shahat Said (University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), Department of Sociology)

  • Prof. Sohaira Siddiqui (Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q))

  • Prof. Mutaz Al-Khatib (Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)/Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE))

  • Ummatics (edited a translation of a book chapter by Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahmane)

  • The Ministry of Justice, New Zealand

Contact

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