The faculty of the Department for the Study of Religion at San Diego State University sadly announces the passing of Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, Professor of Islamic Studies.
Dr. Mohammed, born in Guyana, studied Islamic law at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After completing a Master’s degree in Judaism and Islam at Concordia University, Montreal, he obtained a Ph.D. in Islamic law at McGill University. He then moved to Brandeis University where he completed a two-year Kraft-Hiatt postdoctoral fellowship about the imagery of the Jew in Hadith literature. Dr. Mohammed came to SDSU in 2003 to teach courses related to Islam, Quran, World Religions, and the Abrahamic faiths.
Dr. Mohammed published three scholarly books and more than 20 journal articles. In 2005, he co-authored Coming to terms with the Qur’an, with Professor Andrew Rippin of University of Victoria, Canada. His David in the Muslim Tradition: The Bathsheba Affair was published by Lexington Press in 2014. Dr. Mohammed’s latest book, Islam and Violence, was published in 2019 as part of the Cambridge University Press series Elements in Religion and Violence.
He also served as Director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at SDSU and was associate faculty in SDSU’s LGBTQ+ Studies program. His research interests included Islamic and Arabic studies, Islamic law (classical and modern), comparative religion, Jewish/Christian/Islamic encounter, Qur’anic exegesis (classical and modern), hadith, gender/sex issues and sexuality in Islam, terrorism, antisemitism in Islam, Arab-Israeli relations, and reform in Islam. He was a strong proponent of interfaith marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims, without the traditionally required conversion of the non-Muslim spouse, and was a registered marriage-officiant.
Dr. Mohammed often testified as an expert witness for the prosecution in cases involving allegations of terrorism-related activities. Active in the pursuit of interfaith understanding, Dr. Mohammed participated in numerous interreligious dialogues between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and is well-respected among scholars of Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations.
Khaleel considered working at SDSU to be one of the greatest accomplishments of his career. SDSU was his pride and joy, and he loved his students.
The faculty of the Department for the Study of Religion extends its condolences to the family of Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, as do his colleagues across the College of Arts and Letters.