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Forthcoming Events
Forthcoming public lecture at the Global Peace and Unity conference in London (click image to register)
Professor Joel Hayward books on Islam
About Professor Joel Hayward
Professor Joel Hayward, ZDaF, BA, MA Hons, PhD, FRSA, FRHistS, is a New Zealand-born British scholar and author who served until recently as Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College, UK. The daily newspaper Al Khaleej called him “a world authority on international conflict and strategy”. Kirkus Reviews said that he “is undeniably one of academia’s most visible Islamic thinkers”. The Muslim World Book Review says: "Hayward might well be the most distinguished writer on this topic [Sirah] today – he is simultaneously erudite, politically incorrect and inordinately talented."
He is considered to be one of “the world’s five hundred most influential Muslims,” with his listing in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions of The Muslim 500 noting that “he weaves together classical Islamic knowledge and methodologies and the source-critical Western historical method to make innovative yet carefully reasoned sense of complex historical issues that are still important in today’s world.”
Hayward has earned ijazāt (teaching authorizations) in several Islamic sciences. ʿAqīdah (Islamic theology) and Sīrah (the Prophet’s biography) are his main interests. He has held various academic leadership posts, including Director of the Institute for International and Civil Security at Khalifa University (UAE), Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (also at Khalifa University), Head of Air Power Studies at King’s College London, and Dean of the Royal Air Force College (both UK).
He is the author or editor of seventeen books and major monographs and dozens of peer-reviewed articles, mainly in the fields of strategic studies, military history, the Islamic ethics of war and conflict, and Islamic and western history. His best-selling books include a major analysis of German airpower during the Stalingrad campaign and a thematic investigation of Horatio Lord Nelson and his way of war.
His recent books include Warfare in the Qurʾan (2012), War is Deceit: An Analysis of a Contentious Hadith on the Morality of Military Deception (2017), Civilian Immunity in Foundational Islamic Strategic Thought: A Historical Enquiry (2019), and The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction. The latter won the prestigious prize of “Best International Non-Fiction Book” at the 2021 Sharjah International Book Awards. His newest book is The Warrior Prophet: Muhammad and War (2022).
Professor Hayward has given strategic advice to political and military leaders in several countries, has given policy advice to prominent sheikhs, and was tutor to His Royal Highness Prince William, Prince of Wales. In 2011 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and in 2012 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 2016 he was named as the “Best Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences” at the Middle East Education Leadership Awards. Professor Hayward is also active in the literary arts and has published three books of fiction and four collections of Islamic poetry.
He was very honored to be featured in a five-page story on his scholarship in the October 2022 issue of the Thelitcham Monthly, an academic-orientated magazine published in Malappuram, Kerala, India in the South Indian Malayalam language. In December 2022, the World Muslim League's Al-Rabita magazine also devoted six pages to a feature article on his life and scholarship.
Professor Joel Hayward (click for recent public speech)
Recent Events
Forthcoming public lectures in London (click image to register)
Joel Hayward book talk in Birmingham (click for details)
Joel Hayward book talk in London (click for details)
Joel Hayward in one-day online course (click for details)
Joel Hayward in two-day course in London (click for details)
Professor Joel Hayward Books on Islam and Muhammad
How New Zealand-born Joel Hayward became one of the world's 500 most influential Muslims
Professor Joel Hayward
Professor Joel Hayward's Scholarship
Academic books and major monographs in English and other European Languages:
- The Warrior Prophet: Muhammad and War (Swansea: Claritas Books, October 2022).
- Muhammed kao lider: historijska rekonstrukcija (Tuzla: Dialogos, 2022).
- The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction (Swansea: Claritas Books, June 2021).
- — Best International Non-Fiction Book at the 2021 Sharjah International Book Awards
- — Turkish and Urdu translations are already underway
- Islamic Principles of War for the Twenty-first Century. English Monograph Series — Book No. 26 (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2021).
- Civilian Immunity in Foundational Islamic Strategic Thought. English Monograph Series — Book No. 25 (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2018).
- Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2018).
- "War is Deceit": An Analysis of a Contentious Hadith on the Morality of Military Deception. English Monograph Series — Book No. 24 (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2017).
- Zatrzymani pod Stalingradem: Klęska Luftwaffe i Hitlera na wschodzie 1942-1943 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Napoleon V, 2015).
- Editor, Air Power and the Environment: The Ecological Consequences of Modern Air Warfare (Montgomery, Alabama: Air University Press, 2013. Second edition 2019).
- Warfare in the Qur’an. English Monograph Series — Book No. 14 (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2012).
- Editor, Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” (Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies, 2009).
- 신과 영광을 위해: 넬슨 경과 그의 전쟁 방식 (Goyang-Si: In-Gan-Sar-Rang, 2004).
- For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War (US Naval Institute Press, 2003. Second edition 2019).
- Co-Author, Born to Lead: Portraits of New Zealand Commanders (with Glyn Harper: Exisle Press, 2003).
- Adolf Hitler and Joint Warfare (Wellington: Military Studies Institute, 2000).
- A Joint Future? The Move to Jointness and its Implications for the New Zealand Defence Force (Wellington: Centre for Defence Studies, 2000).
- Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East 1942-1943 (University Press of Kansas, 1998, 2001 and other editions).
Literary Books in English:
- The Savage and other Islamic Short Stories (Swansea: Claritas, 2018).
- Pain and Passing: Islamic Poems of Grief and Healing (Swansea: Claritas, 2018).
- Poems from the Straight Path: A Collection of Islamic Verse (Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2017)
- Splitting the Moon: A Book of Islamic Poetry (Markfield, UK: Kube, 2012).
- No Lamp in the Cave: Islamic Short Stories (CreateSpace, 2012).
- Jenny Green Teeth and Other Short Stories (Palmerston North: Totem Press, 2003).
- Lifeblood: A Book of Poems (Palmerston North: Totem Press, 2003).
Books in progress:
- An Ecological History of War: The Environmental Consequences of Warfare from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2024).
The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction
قيادة محمد : اعادة بناء تاريخي
The Leadership of Muhammad (click image to purchase)
From the back cover of The Leadership of Muhammad (click image to purchase)
Professor Joel Hayward bio in Arabic
Professor Joel Hayward Best Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences in the Middle East 2016
Professor Joel Hayward receives award for religious tolerance from the UAE Ministry of the Interior
Professor Joel Hayward receiving the Prize of Best International Non-Fiction Book at the 2021 Sharjah Book Awards
Professor Joel Hayward with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh
Life of the Prophet Muhammad Conference
Prof Joel Hayward is a keynote speaker at the Life of the Prophet Muhammad Conference on 30 Sept 2023 (click image for information)