Professor el-Sayed el-Aswad received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has taught at Wayne State University (USA), Tanta University (Egypt), Bahrain University, and United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). He received the CHSS-UAEU Award for excellence in scientific research publication for the 2013–2014 academic year. He served as chairperson of the sociology departments at both the UAEU and Tanta University as well as the editor-in chief of the Journal of Horizons in Humanities and Social Sciences (UAEU). He has published widely in both Arabic and English and is the author of The Quality of Life and Policy Issues among the Middle East and North African Countries (Springer 2019), Muslim Worldviews and Everyday Lives (AltaMira Press, 2012), Religion and Folk Cosmology: Scenarios of the Visible and Invisible in Rural Egypt (Praeger Press, 2002; translated into Arabic in 2005), Symbolic Anthropology (Munsh’t al-Ma’raif, Alexandria, 2002), and Folk House in the UAE (al-Bait al-Sha‘bi) (UAE University Press, 1996). He has been awarded fellowships from various institutes including the Fulbright Program, the Ford Foundation, the Egyptian government, and the United Arab Emirates University. Professor el-Sayed el-Aswad is a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Digest of Middle East Studies (DOMES), Muslims in Global Societies Series, Tabsir: Insight on Islam and the Middle East, and CyberOrient (online journal about the Middle East). He is a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Middle Eastern Studies of North America, and the American Academy of Religion. He has published 10 books, over 90 papers in peer-reviewed and indexed journals, and over 40 book reviews.