Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani

Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani has been teaching at Mercer University since fall 2018 and specializes in Islam. She earned her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and her bachelor’s at Emory University. In 2017-2018, she was the Dissertation Diversity Fellow at Ithaca College in Women’s and Gender Studies, where she taught courses on Islamic feminism and gender and sexuality in the Middle East. Prior to that, she taught at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, while working on her dissertation.

Dr. Haqqani has received numerous grants and fellowships to support her teaching and research. These include a research grant from the American Association of University Women, a seed grant from Mercer to support her research on Muslim women’s interreligious marriages, a Racial Equity and Interfaith Cooperation Curricular Award from Interfaith America, and a Wabash Center Fellowship from Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, Islamic Studies
• M.A., Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Texas at Austin
• B.A., Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University

Specialty

Religion, Islam and gender, interfaith marriage, change and tradition

Professional Interests

Courses Dr. Haqqani has taught at Mercer include Abrahamic Religions (REL 170), Why Religion Matters (REL 110), Eastern and Western Religions (REL 356 and 357), Islamophobia (REL 355), Intro to Islam (REL 215), and Islam and Gender (INT 301).

Dr. Haqqani’s research interests include religious authority, religion and feminism, and change and tradition. Her forthcoming book, Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender, explores these themes. Currently, she is working on a book on Muslim women’s marriage to non-Muslims, surveying historical and contemporary conversations on the issue.

Dr. Haqqani is also a podcast host with the New Books Network, interviewing authors of recent books for the New Books in Islamic Studies channel.

Other Interests

Dr. Haqqani loves traveling around the world, meeting and connecting with people, and spending time with her niblings (nephews and nieces). She also enjoys reading and writing on things not related to her academic work, one of her latest interests being personal finance and investing, which she encourages everyone to learn about. She’s recently become interested in mindfulness and breath work on her journey to self-development. Dr. Haqqani also has a first degree black belt in taekwondo.

Recent Publications

• Forthcoming (Oneworld Academic, 2024). Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender.
• 2023. “The Qur’an on Muslim Women’s Marriage to Non-Muslims: Premodern Exegetical Strategies, Contradictions, and Assumptions.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 25, no. 1 (2023): 36-78.
• 2022. “A Guide for Muslim Women’s Marriage to Non-Muslim Men,” in Tying the Knot: a Feminist/Womanist Guide to Muslim Marriage in America, ed. Kecia Ali (Boston: OpenBU), 18-29.
• 2021. “Islam and Gender.” In Bloomsbury Religion in North America, eds. Vincent Biondo and Huma Mohibullah. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
• 2020. “On Patriarchy.” Critical Muslim 36, no. 3 (2020): 251-260.
• 2019. “The Pashtun Woman Blogger: Marginality, Empowerment, and the Struggle for Recognition.” In Political Muslims: Understanding Youth Resistance in Global Context, eds. Sadek Hamid and Tahir Abbas. Syracuse University Press.
• 2019. “Teaching Islam and Gender.” In Teaching Islam in the Age of ISIS and Islamophobia. Indian University Press.
• 2015. “Islam” (co-authored with Laury Silvers, El-Farouk Khaki, and Troy Jackson). In Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives, eds. Mychal Copeland and D’Vorah Rose. SkyLight Paths Publishing.

Contact Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani

(478) 301-2768
haqqani_s@mercer.edu
Office: Knight Hall 313A