Carl W. Ernst

Carl W. Ernst (born September 8, 1950, in Los Angeles, California)[1] is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

[5] Ernst's book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement.

[3] His book Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism won the Farabi Award.

Ernst has received several Fulbright fellowships (India, 1978-9; Pakistan, 1986; Spain, 2001; Malaysia, 2005), plus grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has also been a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1990, 2003, 2019, 2022).