Abdullah Antepli

Co-Director, Muslim Leadership Initiative

Imam Abdullah Antepli is a Fellow on Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute and Co-Director of the Muslim Leadership Initiative. He is on the faculty at both Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke Divinity School, where from 2008–2014 he served as the university’s first Muslim chaplain, one of only a handful of full-time Muslim chaplains at U.S. colleges and universities. He was recently recognized as one of the most influential Muslims in US Higher Education by the NonProfit Times. In his multiple roles at Duke, Imam Abdullah engages students, faculty, and staff across and beyond campus through seminars, panels, and other avenues to provide a Muslim voice and perspective to the discussions of faith, spirituality, social justice, and more. Imam Abdullah also serves as a faculty member in the Duke Divinity School, teaching courses on Islam and Muslim cultures.

From 1996–2003 Imam Abdullah worked on a variety of faith-based humanitarian and relief projects in Myanmar (Burma) and Malaysia with the Association of Social and Economic Solidarity with Pacific Countries. He then served as the first Muslim chaplain at Wesleyan University, and subsequently as the Associate Director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program & Interfaith Relations and an adjunct faculty member at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

Imam Abdullah is the founder and executive board member of the Association of College Muslim Chaplains (ACMC) and a board member of the Association for College and University Religious Affairs (ACURA).