About

Asef Bayat is a Professor of Sociology and the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His academic career includes teaching at the American University in Cairo and serving as the director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), holding the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has also held visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, Oxford, and Brown University. His research interests encompass Political Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change, Religion and Public Life, Urban Life and Politics, Islam and Modernity, and the Contemporary Middle East. His recent work focuses on understanding the Arab revolutions—particularly the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions—from historical, comparative, and sociological perspectives, emphasizing the role of popular classes and subaltern groups in these upheavals. His publications include notable books such as 'Revolution without Revolutionaries' and 'Life as Politics,' which explore themes of social movements, political Islam, and the dynamics of change in the Middle East. Bayat's contributions have been recognized through various honors, including election to prominent academic chairs and fellowships from institutions like the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Guggenheim Foundation.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Sociology
• History
• Mechanical engineering
• Geography
• Political economy
• Engineering

Selected publications

• <i>Adaptable cities and temporary urbanisms</i> , by Lauren Andres

  Journal of Urban Affairs · 2025-11-03

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging community pharmacies for HIV services in South Africa: Opportunities and constraints

  Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine · 2025-10-28

  reviewOpen access

  Access to HIV services in South Africa remains challenging, despite their availability in the public healthcare sector. While the legislative framework allows for the provision of these services in community pharmacies, the process is often complex. This article describes various models for the provision of HIV services in community pharmacies in South Africa through a review of existing policies and legislation. It further discusses barriers and opportunities for the expansion of services. The existing legal framework enables prescribing by healthcare professionals other than medical practitioners through authorisations issued under either the Medicines and Related Substances Act of 1965 or the Nursing Act of 2005. Community pharmacies have extended their role beyond dispensing medication, with the emergence of telehealth and potential initiatives such as Pharmacist-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (PIMART). Telehealth, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, provides remote consultations and electronic prescriptions. PIMART, on the other hand, can empower pharmacists to initiate and manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV patients, a role traditionally reserved for clinicians. Extending Nurse-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (NIMART) into the private sector could further increase ART rollout. Despite these advancements made in the last two decades, legislative reforms are necessary to fully realise the potential of community pharmacies for providing HIV services.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is Iran on the Verge of Another Revolution?

  Freedom of Thought Journal · 2023-06-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  How do we make sense of Iran’s “Women, Life, Freedom”, the extraordinary political uprising that came to being following the death of the Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini in September 2022 in the police custody for wearing an "improper" hijab? This is neither a “feminist revolution” per se, nor simply the revolt of the new generation, nor merely about mandatory hijab. This is a movement to reclaim life, a struggle to liberate free and dignified existence from an internal colonization. As the primary objects of this colonization, women have become the protagonists of a movement that may set the Islamic Republic on a revolutionary course.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Iran on the Verge of Another Revolution?

  Journal of democracy · 2023-04-01 · 25 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  How do we make sense of Iran’s “Women, Life, Freedom,” the extraordinary political uprising that came into being following the death of the Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini in September 2022 in police custody following her arrest for wearing an “improper” hijab? This is neither a “feminist revolution” per se, nor simply the revolt of the new generation, nor is it merely about the mandatory hijab. This is a movement to reclaim life, a struggle to liberate free and dignified existence from an internal colonization. As the primary objects of this colonization, women have become the protagonists of a movement that may set the Islamic Republic on a revolutionary course.

  PublisherDOI

• Interview with Professor Asef Bayat

  Protest · 2022-06-13

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Islamic Movements

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-06-10 · 3 citations

  otherOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Broadly “Islamic movements” refer to the diverse religious trends in the Muslim world that want to reorganize society with reference to Islam. The complex and multifaceted nature of the phenomenon has stirred multiple designations, including “Islamic radicalism,” “fundamentalism,” “revivalism” or “resurgence,” “Islamic activism,” and “political Islam,” each stressing particular aspects of these movements. Thus, “fundamentalism” highlights the scripturist essentialism, pointing to the traditionalism of the movements, or a belief in the exclusive possession of a unique truth. “Revivalism” and “resurgence” underline the religious at the expense of the political content of these movements, and “Islamic activism” is intended to account for the inclusion of various types of activities – political, social, and cultural – that emerge under the rubric of Islamic movement.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• O postislamizmu općenito / Post-Islamism at large

  Context Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies · 2022-03-17

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In an earlier work Making Islam Democratic (2007), I attempted to interrogate the infamous question of whether Islam was compatible with democracy. I concluded that whereas Islamism (understood as deploying Islam as a political project to establish Islamic state) was unlikely to embrace democratic polity, ‘post-Islamism’ could. My early formulation of ‘post-Islamism’ was based primarily on the experience of Iran in the late 1990s. In this essay I try to see how much this concept has a broader resonance, given that Islamist movements in the Muslim world have experienced significant changes in the past three decades. Basing itself on numerous empirical studies of shift in the political Islam, the essay focuses on revisiting the concept of ‘post-Islamism’ by addressing the questions that its application to other experiences of Islamist politics may raise, as well as the questions that critiques have raised since the concept’s inception. Post-Islamism emerges as a critique from within and without of Islamist politics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Graphisches Inhaltsverzeichnis: Angew. Chem. 52/2021

  Angewandte Chemie · 2021-12-13

  articleOpen access

  The best advice Ihave ever been given is never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission My favorite place on earth is the Huangguoshu waterfall in Guizhou Province, China " Find out more about Miao Shen in her Introducing Profile.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global Middle East

  2021-02-23 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• PREFACE

  2021-02-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Linda Herrera

  16 shared

• Nong Zhang

  4 shared

• Ruud L. E. G. Aspers

  4 shared

• Robin Teufel

  University of Basel

  4 shared

• Xinhui Su

  Zhejiang University

  4 shared

• Z. Wu

  4 shared

• David S. Meier

  4 shared

• Jan Rossmeisl

  University of Copenhagen

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Ford Foundation Fellow
• MacArthur Fellow
• Open Society Fellow
• Guggenheim Fellow
• Wissenschaftskolleg Fellow, Berlin