Mustafa Ismail Kaya

Mustafa Ismail Kaya is a Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, teaching since 2021. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2020). His research focuses on religion and politics in late medieval and early modern Islamic history, particularly the intersection of global religious trends with political developments, such as the rise of the Timurids, the Ottoman Empire, and the Safavid state. His work examines figures like the Central Asian Sufi Zayn al-Din Khwafi to explore the role of shari’a-minded Sufism in fifteenth-century political contexts.

He teaches courses on Islamic history and mentors graduate students in the MA program in Middle Eastern Studies. Kaya is affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.