Ruqayya Yasmine Khan is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies. Born in Pakistan, with her childhood in Kenya, Africa, she and her family moved to the US when she was a young girl. Dr. Khan received all her education on the East Coast. She undertook her graduate training at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received both her M.A. and Ph.D. She also has spent time studying at the American University of Cairo in Egypt. Prior to her arrival at Trinity University in 2003, Dr. Khan was a Visiting Asst. Professor first at Swarthmore College and then subsequently at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dr. Khan’s research interests include Arabic Literary Studies, Qur’anic Studies, Psychology of Religion, Progressive Islamic Theologies as well as Religion & Childhood. Her book Self and Secrecy in Early Islam is forthcoming with the University of South Carolina Press (Studies in Comparative Religion, Frederick M. Denny, General Editor). Among the articles and book chapters she has published are the following: "'The Child on Loan': Childhood, Children and Adolescents in Islamic Studies," in Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World¹s Religious Traditions, November, 2005; "On the Significance of Secrecy in the Medieval Arabic Romances," Journal of Arabic Literature, January, 2001; “Sacrifice and Substitution in the Classical Arabic Love Story of al-Muraqqish al-Akbar," History of Religions, August, 1999
At Trinity University, Dr. Khan has taught Religion and Childhood; Islam, Judaism and Christianity; The Islamic Tradition; Islamic Literatures; Women in Islam