Welcome
Thomas Hegghammer is an academic specializing in the study of violent Islamism. He is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as well as a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in Oslo. He holds a PhD in political science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and an MA and MPhil in Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University. A fluent Arabic speaker, Dr. Hegghammer has conducted extensive field research in the Middle East.
Dr. Hegghammer's research focuses on the history and dynamics of violent Islamist movements, especially in Saudi Arabia. His current work centers on the internationalisation of Islamist militancy in the 1980s and 1990s. Thomas Hegghammer has published extensively on various aspects of radical Islamism. He is co-author of al-Qaida in its own words (Harvard University Press, 2008) and has two books in the making for Cambridge University Press: one about jihadism in Saudi Arabia, the other about Abdallah Azzam and the history of the Arab Afghans.
News/recent publications:
- Jihad in Saudi Arabia included in the Cambridge University Press catalogue - publication expected February 2010 (14 June 2009).
- Review of Laurent Murawiec, Mind of Jihad in the Times Higher Education Supplement (12 June 2009)
- Op-ed on Al-Qaida's reactions to the CIA torture memos in Foreign Policy (4 May 2009)
- Q&A with Thomas Hegghammer in Bellum (15 April 2009)
- Review of the documentary "Recycle" in The National (12 February 2009)
- Thomas Hegghammer becomes a contributor to the blog Jihadica (18 January 2009)
- Review of Jean-Pierre Filiu, L'apocalypse dans l'islam, in The National (15 January 2009)
- Book chapter on the rise and fall of al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula, in Bernard Rougier (ed.), Qu'est-ce que le salafisme? (6 October 2008)
- Thomas Hegghammer takes up a fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, where he will be working with the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs (2 September 2008)
- Article on Islamist violence and regime stability in Saudi Arabia in International Affairs (22 July 2008)