Rasoul Namazi is an Iranian political theorist and historian of Islamic and Western thought, currently Assistant Professor of Political Theory at Duke Kunshan University, China and Assistant Professor of the Practice of Global Studies at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Trained at the University of Tehran Center, Paris-Sorbonne, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, he was a visiting fellow at the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago & Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. A laureate of Prix Raymond Aron 2015 for his work on John Locke, Namazi explores topics ranging from early modern political philosophy (esp. Machiavelli & Locke) to Islamic political thought (esp. the Qur'an, Alfarabi, Averroes, Persian Political Thought). His current research focus is the comparative study of Islamic and Western political thought.

Namazi’s book titled Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) is a comprehensive study of Leo Strauss’s writings on Islamic political thought. He is currently working on a book-length manuscript on early Islamic political thought and theology.