Basheer Nafi

Basheer Musa Nafi (Arabic: بشير نافع) is Palestinian-born, living in the United Kingdom.¹ Nafi is a Professor of Middle East History and a Senior Researcher at Al Jazeera Centre for Studies.²

Nafi was born in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza.³ After the 1967 war, he moved to Jordan to live with his uncle and complete high school. In 1971, Nafi moved to Egypt to study veterinary medicine.³ Nafi moved to the UK to undertake postgraduate study at King's College.¹

Nafi holds two PhDs, the first in microbiology from King's College, University of London (1987)⁴ and the second in political history from the University of Reading (1996).⁵ The second was published as a book in 1998, titled Arabism, Islamism and the Palestine Question, 1908-1941: A Political History.⁶

He taught Islamic history and Islamic studies at Birkbeck College of the University of London,⁷ the Muslim College, and Markefield Institute of High Education.

• Arabism, Islamism and the Palestine Question, 1908–1941: A Political History, Ithaca Press, Reading, 1998.
• Imperialism, Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism (in Arabic), Cairo, Dar al-Shuruq, 1999.
• The Rise and Decline of the Arab-Islamic Reform Movement, London, ICIT Papers, 2000.
• Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century (co-editor; in association with S. Taji-Farouki), London, I. B. Tauris, 2004.
• The Palestinian strategic Report: 2005 (co-editor; in association with Muhsin Salih; in English and Arabic), Beirut, al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies, 2006.
• Iraq: Contexts of Unity and Disintegration. A Reading in Sunnism, Shi‘ism, and the Arab Identity (in Arabic), Cairo, Dar al-Shuruq, 2006.
• The Islamists (in Arabic), Beirut, al-Dar al-‘Arabiyya, 2010.
• On the Emergence and Triumph of Ahl al-Sunna Wal-Jama'a, 2023.