Academic Bio
Mustafa Kaya is a PhD candidate in Islamic History and Civilization. He is currently working on his dissertation dealing with the relationship between the orthodox Sufism and state in the fifteenth century, under the supervision of Professor Cornell Fleischer. He is also a lecturer in first-year Arabic at the University. Before coming to Chicago, Mustafa studied at the School of Political Sciences at the University of Ankara (BA) and at Bilkent University's (Ankara) History Program (MA). His academic interests include heretic Sufi groups, orthodoxy, religion and politics, and Ottoman history. While working on his PhD, Mustafa Kaya traveled in Egypt and Iran (not to mention his home country Turkey) and taught courses on Islam at Lafayette College and Respect Graduate School.