Remembering Professor Emeritus Saad Eddin Ibrahim

“Something many don’t know is that as a Cairo University undergrad, Saad [Eddin Ibrahim] took extension classes in English at AUC and read in the old Hill House library.  Once appointed to the faculty, his affection for AUC grew with each new batch of students. While Saad never wavered from his civic activism, I truly believe he was most fulfilled when in a sociology classroom teaching.”

This is how Barbara Ibrahim, who served as founding director of AUC’s John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy, Civic Engagement and Responsible Business, described her husband’s affinity and longstanding relationship with AUC and its students. Saad Eddin Ibrahim taught sociology at AUC for 33 years, after which he returned to the University as an adjunct professor and was later named professor emeritus. 

Ibrahim was raised in Daqahliyah, a rural town on the Nile Delta. He graduated with honors in sociology from Cairo University, where he was president of the student union. He moved to the United States in 1962, earning a master’s in sociological development from the University of California, Los Angeles – where he later taught political sociology – and a doctorate in political sociology from the University of Washington. Before joining AUC, he taught sociology from 1967 to 1974 at DePauw University, where he met his wife of 50 years Barbara, who was a DePauw student at the time. 

An award-winning public intellectual, scholar, author and human rights advocate, Ibrahim is co-editor of Arab Society: Class, Gender, Power, and Development (1998) with the late Professor Emeritus Nicholas S. Hopkins, and author of Egypt, Islam, and Democracy: Critical Essays (2002) – both AUC Press publications. He has written extensively on Islam, politics, democracy and civil society, and "his work remains a central reference for students and scholars in the field," said Provost Ehab Abdel-Rahman in a message to the AUC community.

Colleagues also attest to his scholarly expertise and camaraderie.

“Saad Eddin Ibrahim was a prolific scholar-activist whose work on the sociology of the Middle East, particularly democratization and civil society, was influential in my own work on gender and democratization in the region when I first joined AUC as an assistant professor of sociology,” said Helen Rizzo, associate professor of sociology and head of the sociology unit at AUC. “Moreover, he was a supportive and caring departmental colleague, and his sense of humor made for entertaining departmental meetings. He will be missed.”

What Former Students Have to Say