Kim Searcy

Kim Searcy (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2004; B.S., University of Indianapolis, 1989) is Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago where he teaches courses on Islam, Islam in East Africa, African history, slavery in Muslim Africa, and Islam in the African American experience.

Prof. Searcy has written extensively on the Sudan and the historical impact of African slavery in the Sudan. His first book The Formation of the Sudanese Mahdist State: Symbols and Ceremony, 1882-1898 (Brill, 2010) is part of Brill’s “Islam in Africa” series. Prof. Searcy has examined Sufism, the Mahdi's attitudes on slavery, the slave trade, and emancipation, as well as the impact of charismatic authority on the Khalifa. His current research examines the Muslim Brotherhood in northern Africa, specifically comparing the evolution of the Brotherhood in Egypt and the Sudan in the second half of the twentieth century.

Dr. Searcy is also the author of articles on: “Al Mahdi,” Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought; “The Mahdi’s Attitudes on Slavery, the Slave Trade and Emancipation”, Journal of Islamic Africa; and “The Khalifa and the Routinization of Charismatic Authority”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies.