Dr El-Affendi is Reader in Politics at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster and co-ordinator of the Centre's Democracy and Islam Programme. He is also currently an ESRC/AHRC Fellow in the Global Uncertainties Programme (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/ccprog/security.htm) working on a project entitled: Narratives of Insecurity, Democratization and the Justification of (Mass) Violence.

Educated at the Universities of Khartoum, Wales, and Reading, he is author of Turabi's Revolution: Islam and Power in Sudan (1991), Who Needs an Islamic State? (1991 - 2008 second edition leaflet here - a link to the online debate about the book on the Guardian website: here), Revolution and Political Reform in Sudan (1995), Rethinking Islam and Modernity (2001), For a State of Peace: Conflict and the Future of Democracy in Sudan (2002) and The Conquest of Muslim Hearts and Minds: Perspectives on U.S. Reform and Public Diplomacy Strategies (2005) (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/research/projects/islam/paper_elaffendi.pdf) and About Muhammad: The Other Western Perspective on the Prophet of Islam (2010) .
He is also co-author of Dr El-Affendi was member of the core team of authors of the 2004 Arab Human Development Report: Towards Freedom in the Arab World  (http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/regionalreports/arabstates/name,3278,en.html) and is member of the Advisory Board and a contributor to the 2005 report. He is also co-author of the report: Contextualising Islam in Britain: Exploratory Perspectives  (2009) (http://www.cis.cam.ac.uk/CIBPReport.pdf).  

He is also member of the Advisory Council of the Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Edinburgh, member of the Board of Directors of Inter-Africa Group (Addis Ababa), and a trustee of the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue (UK).

Dr El-Affendi is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Islamic Studies at Cambridge University, and has previously been a Visiting Fellow/Professor at the Christian Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway (1995 and 2003), Northwestern University (2002), and the International Centre for Islamic Thought and Civilization, Kuala Lumpur (2008).