Mohamud Awil Mohamed is a scholar whose work interrogates the intersections of migration, religion, ethics, and collective memory. His current project interrogates the relationship between Islamic Law and Customary Law (Xeer) in Bilad as-Ṣumal (today known as Somalia, but historically the lands that incorporate current-day Djibouti, Eastern Ethiopia, and the NFD region in Kenya). His projects seeks to understand the intersection of anathematization, creedal factionalism/fluidity, and the friction between ascetically minded Ulema versus their letter-of-the-law counterparts in Bilad as-Ṣumal.
He completed his graduate work in Heritage Studies and Public History at the University of Minnesota where he was an Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellow. During his time in the program, he conducted research in Islamic Law with Dr. Hassan Abdelsalam, archived East African Manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, completed a FLAS Fellowship in Fes, Morocco, and conducted digital humanities and oral history projects with the University of Minnesota Libraries and MN Transform respectively.
Advisors: Lee Cassenelli, Cheikh Babou
M.A., Heritage Studies & Public History, University of Minnesota
B.A., History, Augsburg University
B.A., Islamic Studies, Abubakar As-Siddique Institute for Islamic Studies
Islamic Law, Hadith Studies, Manuscript Studies, Transnational Networks of Learning, Itinerant scholars, Ulema-State paradigm, Natural Language Processing.
Mohamed, Mohamud. “Beyond The Specter of The Colossus,” Atmos Earth (2021)
Mohamed, Mohamud. “Migration, Digitization, and Preservation - A Case Study of a Somali Manuscript” Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (2021)
Mohamed, Mohamud. “From Zeila to Futa Jallon: Muslim States and the Colonial Encounter,” Black Muslim Psychology Conference Papers (2020).
Mohamed, Mohamud. “The Dugsi: A Dynamic or Outdated Methodology for Islamic Pedagogy in East Africa,” Black Muslim Psychology Conference Papers (2019).
Mohamed, Mohamud. “Reform, Authority, and Power: The Radical Hermeneutics of Ibn Taymiyyah and Martin Luther,” Augsburg Undergraduate Research Symposium (2018).
Mohamed, Mohamud. “A Bridge for The Sunnah in A Time of Fitnah -Towards a Theology of Mutual Support,” Senior Submission, Council on International Educational Exchange (Spring 2018).
Mohamed, Mohamud “Islam and Blackness: A crossroads" 1 & 2” Huffington Post. (2016)
The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
Middle East Studies Association
African Studies Association
The Islamic Manuscript Association
Somali Studies International Association