E-mail: nakshben@american.edu
Ghiyath Nakshbendi, was the Founder of the first college Masjid at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland back in 1972, where he was tenured faculty. Most recently, he serves as a volunteer Muslim Chaplain at the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University, and faculty advisor to several university student-run organizations, including the Muslim Student Association (MSA).
Ghiyath left academia to pursue a 25-year career in the financial industry. He is a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) subject-matter expert, with a focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and has conducted work on significant projects in the region spanning from Mauritania to Oman, over a period of 20 years. He was a member of the Advisory Committee on U.S.—Muslim World Relations formed in 2006 at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and is currently a fellow of the Sovereign Investment Lab and the ? BAFFI CAREFIN Centre for Applied Research on International Markets, Banking, Finance and Regulation at Università Bocconi and the National Council on US-Arab Relations
He returned to academia in 2007 to teach business courses at the American University, at i) the Kogod School of Business, in addition to, being an affiliate faculty member of ii) the School on International Service, the Arab World Studies Program and iii) the College of Arts and Sciences. Ghiyath was a guest of the United States Department of State’s (DOS) tour in 2008 to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan where he spoke about Islam in America.
At American University he introduced the first academic courses in the Washington, D.C. area on Islamic Finance at the graduate and undergraduate levels, in addition to, the first Graduate Certificate in Islamic Finance in the United States. Ghiyath is a Fulbright Scholar and has been affiliated with five other educational institutions of higher learning in the United States and abroad, where he has taught various business courses in the Arabic language.
Ghiyath is a frequent speaker in both the domestic and international arenas, and presented at the U.S. Department of State and Foreign Service Institute. His television, radio and print interviews, includes: Dubai TV, Alhurra Television, Express News, SNRT of Morocco, HOT 102 FM Station of Jamaica, Atlantic Radio of Morocco, VOA, SkyNewsArabia, Kuwait TV, FM 93.3 Radio of Kuwait, Oman TV, Xinhua News Agency, Al Ekhbariya TV of Saudi Arabia, French TV, France 24 and Radio Monte Carlo International, among others.
Ghiyath received his Bachelor of Commercial Sciences from the University of Aleppo, Syria; earned his Master in Business Administration from the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas; and was awarded his Ph.D. in Business Administration from American University, Washington, D.C.