Mahmoud Ayoub was born in south Lebanon. He received his education at the American University of Beirut (BA, philosophy, 1964), the University of Pennsylvania (MA, religious thought, 1966), and Harvard University (PhD, history of religions, 1975). Since 1988, he has been a professor and chair of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religion, Temple University, Philadelphia, an adjunct professor at the Duncan Black Macdonald Center, Hartford Seminary, Connecticut, and a research fellow at the Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He has also been an adjunct professor at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote, PA, since 1997.

In 1998, Dr. Ayoub helped devise and launch a graduate MA level program in Muslim-Christian relations and comparative religion for the Centre for Christian-Muslim Studies, University of Balamand, Lebanon, and since the spring of 1999 has been its visiting professor. Ayoub has also previously taught at San Diego State University, the University of Toronto, and McGill University. Ayoub’s authority in both the scholarship and comparative study of Islam and Muslim-Christian relations as well as interreligious dialogue is profoundly demonstrated by the national and international recognition he has received. Significantly, since 1999, Dr. Ayoub has been participating in the United States’ Department of State’s program, serving as one of its ambassadors to various parts of the Middle East, in commenting on American society and institutions, interreligious dialogue and Islam in America.