Kamal Gasimov earned his PhD in Middle East Studies and an MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also received an MA in Persian Language and Literature from Baku State University. Kamal has previously taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Fribourg. At Swarthmore, he is teaching courses on Arabic language and culture.

His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal of Islamic Studies, Central Asian Affairs, and Arabica: Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. He has also published book chapters in edited volumes such as Religion and Soft Power in the South Caucasus (Routledge, 2017) and Tasawwuf and Traditionalism (Brill, forthcoming in 2025). Kamal has made several translations of books on Islamic law and contemporary legal thought from Arabic and English into Russian and Azerbaijani.

Currently, Kamal is working on transforming his dissertation project, titled Crafting Legal and Ethical Revival in the Sufi Lodge: ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha‘rani (d. 1565) and his Circle, into a book. His project explores how Sufi networks utilize mystical epistemology to establish legal pluralism, resolve centuries-old contradictions in religious law, and legitimize global policies of the Empire in early modern Egypt under Ottoman rule. His teaching and research interests include Arabic language pedagogy (TAFL), intellectual and social history of Islam, Mamluk and Ottoman studies, Sufism, Islamic legal history, the bureaucratization of religion, and religious movements in the post-Soviet space, as well as contemporary Arab/Islamic thought. Some of his publications can be accessed here.