Rashied Omar earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of Cape Town and an M.A. in peace studies from the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame. He also completed study programs in Islamic religious education in South Africa, Sudan, Pakistan, and Malaysia.
Omar’s research and teaching focuses on religion, violence, and peacebuilding, especially the Islamic ethics of war and peace and interreligious dialogue. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (Macmillan Reference USA, 2003) and author of Tolerance, Civil Society and Renaissance in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Claremont Main Road Mosque, 2002).
He is completing a book manuscript on religion, violence, and state terror and collaborating with two international scholars as co-editor of A Dictionary of Christian-Muslim Relations, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Omar serves as the coordinating Imam at the Claremont Main Road Mosque, international trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, and international advisor to the Dutch- based Knowledge Forum on Religion and Development.
