Professor Sulayman S. Nyang teaches at the Department of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. He received a Masters degree in Public Administration and a doctorate in Government from the University of Virginia in 1971 and 1974 respectively. Professor Nyang has taught at Howard University since 1972. Except for a period of three years when he served as the Deputy Ambassador of the Republic of the Gambia to seven Middle Eastern and North African countries from 1975 to 1978, he has developed his academic career in the Washington, D.C. area and beyond.

This naturalized American scholar has served in many national and international academic and non-governmental bodies. He is on the advisory boards of several local, national and international organizations dealing with American, African immigrant and Muslim affairs. For several years in the 1980’s Professor Nyang served as a board member and the Chairman of the Africa and International Committee of the Montgomery County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period he also served as co-director with the late Dr. James C. Moone of the NAACP of the NAACP research project on Black Leadership in Montgomery County. This was a project sponsored by the Maryland Council for the Humanities in the 1980’s.

Professor Nyang was appointed acting director of the African Studies Program at Howard University from 1973-75. In 1986, six years after his diplomatic service in the Middle East, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science appointed him to the position of chairman of the Department of African Studies. He served for seven years and then stepped down in 1993 to assume the position of Lead Developer and Senior Consultant of the African Voices Project of the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1997 Professor Nyang became the first scholar to be named the Henry Luce Professor for Abrahamic Religions at the University of Hartford and the Hartford Seminary. This appointment created the opportunity for Professor Nyang to teach at the two institutions and to deliver lectures at churches, synagogues and mosques in the Hartford, Connecticut area and beyond. From 1999 to 2002 Professor Nyang served as a principal investigator and co-director of the Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS) project sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust and housed at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. This project will publish two volumes of scholarly research on the state of American Muslims and two volumes dealing with a Who is Who among American Muslims and a directory of their mosques and centers around the United States of America.

Professor Nyang has written extensively on African, Islamic and Middle Eastern affairs .His most widely known book is Islam, Christianity and African Identity. In addition to this volume on African encounters with the Abrahamic religions, he has also authored or co-edited several other books. Among these are Religious Plurality in Africa, with Jacob Olupona, A Line in the Sand: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the Gulf War, with Evans Heindricks; Islam:Its Relevance Today, co-edited with Henry Thompson. His 1999 book on Islam in the United States of America is read widely and is listed in many bibliographies on American religion and culture. His latest work is Muslims’ Place in the American Public Square. Hopes, Fears, and Aspirations (Altamira Press, April 2004), jointly edited with Zahid Bukhari(Georgetown University), Mumtaz Ahmad (Hampton University) and John Esposito (Georgetown University).

Professor Nyang has also written chapters in forty-two books and encyclopedias edited by colleagues in the academy. In addition to these books and chapters in books, he has written many scholarly articles in American, African, Asian and European journals and magazines. Professor Nyang’s academic visibility can be measured from the editorial boards he served throughout the world. He is one of the most widely known African or Muslim academics in the United States of America and is currently on the advisory boards of several national African and Muslim organizations .He served as the first American Muslim president of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.