Daniel (Dan) Brown is an American based in Istanbul, Turkey. He directs the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East (ISRME). The focus of ISRME is on the multi-disciplinary study of religious phenomena including religious texts, ideas and belief systems, and also the rituals, histories and social structures of religious communities. In addition, he is the author of Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge) and A New Introduction to Islam (Wiley-Blackwell). He was awarded a doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago and has taught at Mount Holyoke College and Smith College and has been a visiting scholar at the Islamic University in Islamabad, the Institute of Islamic Culture in Lahore, Cairo University and Oxford University. His interests include modern Muslim intellectual history, Hadith studies and Muslim-Christian relations.