Wadad Kadi

Wadad Kadi is the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Islamic Thought in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

A widely published scholar, Kadi's work focuses on the intersection of pre-modern Arabic literature and political, sectarian and cultural Islamic thought and history. She is the author of a number of articles ranging in scope from early Islamic culture to pre-modern Arabic administrative prose. She has also published critical editions of Arabic manuscripts, including several of Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi’s most important works. She taught at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Harvard, Columbia, Yale and the University of Chicago, where she spent most of her career. She is the recipient of numerous honors, among them the King Faisal International Prize in Arabic literature (1994). 

She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in Arabic Literature from AUB.