Fouad Ajami

Professor and writer A MacArthur Fellowship winning American University professor and writer, on Middle Eastern issues, Fouad Ajami was also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He wrote more than 400 articles for magazines and newspapers as well as half-dozen books on the Middle East. Fouad's first book, 'The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967' (1981), explored the panic and sense of vulnerability in the Arab world after the 1967 war. His next book, 'The Vanishing Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon' (1986), profiled an Iranian cleric who helped transform Lebanese Shia from 'a despised minority' to effective successful political actors. For the 1988 book 'Beirut: City of Regrets,' Mr. Ajami provided a long introduction and some text. He wrote in 'The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey' (1998), an examination of Arab intellectuals of the last two generations - how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to renew their homelands' culture through the forces of modernism and secularism. His family though hailing from Iran, Fouad Ajami was born in Arnoun, Lebanon. In 1963, a day or two before his 18th birthday, his family moved to the United States. Fouad earned a Ph.D. at the University of Washington after writing a thesis on international relations and world government. He next taught political science at Princeton. In 1980, the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University named him director of Middle East studies. He joined the Hoover Institution in 2011. Fouad Ajami died of cancer.

Compiler: M. Nauman Khan