One of Kenya’s and Africa academic icons Professor Ali Al’Amin Mazrui is dead. He was an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.
He was an academic, professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. Prof. Mazrui was born in Mombasa, Kenya in 1933. Mazrui studied at schools in Mombasa, in Kenya. Mazrui obtained his Bachelor of Arts. with Distinction from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960, his M.A. from Columbia University in New York in 1961, and his doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford University (Nuffield College) in 1966. On completion of his studies, he joined Makerere University where he rose to the post of the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He was forced into exile by Idi Amin in 1973.
In 1974, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as professor and later was appointed the Director of the Centre for Afro-American and African Studies (1978–1981). In 1989, he was appointed to the faculty of Binghamton University, State University of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS). Mazrui also holds three concurrent faculty appointments as Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the Humanities and Development Studies at the University of Jos in Nigeria, Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya. In 1999, Mazrui retired as the inaugural Walter Rodney Professor at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana. Mazrui has also been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, The University of Chicago, Colgate University, McGill University, National University of Singapore, Oxford University, Harvard University, Bridgewater State College, Ohio State University, and at other institutions in Cairo, Australia, Leeds, Nairobi, Tehran, Denver, London, Baghdad, and Sussex, amongst others.
In 2005, Ali Mazrui was selected as the 73rd topmost intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (United States). Beside his academic appointments, Prof Mazrui also served as President of the African Studies Association (USA) and as Vice-President of the International Political Science Association and has also served as Special Advisor to the World Bank. He has also served on the Board of the American Muslim Council, Washington, D.C.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has eulogised the late Professor Ali Mazrui as one of the greatest scholars Kenya and the continent have ever produced. Deputy President William Ruto said Mazrui’s works transcended all borders. Prof Ali Mazrui passed away on 13th October 2014
