Shah Mahmoud Hanifi is an Assistant Professor of History who received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. from The University of Michigan. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Global History.
      Dr. Hanifi’s research interests include colonialism, state formation, tribal economies, ethnic identity and relations, trans-national trade, mobile merchant communities, and nomadism. His research activities have been supported by the Social Science Research Council (with funds provided by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Near and Middle East Research and Training Act), the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (through the American Institutes of Indian and Pakistan Studies), the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and The University of Michigan Graduate School. His award-winning thesis on trade and state formation in nineteenth-century Afghanistan forms the basis of a manuscript-in-preparation titled Connecting Histories in Afghanistan.
      Dr. Hanifi serves on the Executive Board and as the Treasurer for the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, and is the faculty initiator of Greater Asian Studies at JMU. He has articles forthcoming in Iranian Studies and Comparative Studies in Society and History, and entries in the Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopaedia Iranica; book reviews in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly, and the Middle East Journal.

    Dr. Hanifi has been honored with the Gutenberg-e Prize for 2004.  Information about the prize and a list of winners can be found here.

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi
(Full-time Faculty)
History Department
CLEV 306
MSC 2001
office phone: +1 540 568 1743
e-mail: hanifism@jmu.edu