Malika Zeghal (born 1965[1]) is a French Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University,[2] and formerly an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion in the University of Chicago Divinity School.
She began her postdoctoral research in 1995 at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University before returning to France to join for ten years, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique from 1995 to 2005.
[5] Her work, Gardiens de l'Islam: Les oulémas d'Al Azhar dans l'Egypte contemporaine, written in French is an analysis of the influence of the ulama of Al-Azhar University[6][7].
"[8] The book explores how state interactions with the Azhari ulama helped to lead to the rise other Islamic movements, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, outside of traditional institutions.
Her most recent book, The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa was published by Princeton University Press in 2024.