Dr. Abdullah Ansary received his B.A. in Islamic legal studies with “Excellent” Distinction and Honors from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities - Department of Islamic Studies at King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Following graduation, he was appointed as a full-time teaching assistant in Islamic studies at King Abdul-Aziz University from 1990-1992. In 1997 he received his M.A. in Islamic Law with “Excellent” Distinction and Honors from the Faculty of Law and Shari’ah(Islamic Law) , Department of Comparative Law at Umm A-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Ansary returned to King Abdul-Aziz University as a full-time lecturer in Islamic Studies, from 1997-1998. While there, he served as a member of the Admissions Committee, Courses Development Committee, and the Entering Students Exam Committee. In the spring of 2000, he received his LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, and continued as a Visiting Researcher in the Graduate Program at Harvard Law School for the academic year 2000-2001. In March 2005, Dr. Ansary received his Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) degree with strong recommendation to publish the dissertation from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Dr. Ansary worked as a Contract Senior Foreign Law Specialist in the Eastern Law Division at the Law Library of Congress for the year 2005-2006. He authored and co-authored several congressional reports on the law and/or practice of foreign jurisdictions, in particular the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arabia Countries, Islamic Law, Constitutional and legal reforms in Turkey, and foreign legal responses to terrorism. He served as a subject matter expert for the US Department of Justice in the Criminal Justice System, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ansary currently provides legal consultancy and expertise to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC. He also provides research and legal opinion to several U.S. governmental branches and scholarly communities, and has been a member of task forces charged with reviewing a key issues related to homeland security.

Dr. Ansary’s research interests focus primarily on Comparative Emergency Laws and Special Measures; Comparative Anti-Terrorism Legislations; Comparative National Security Law and Policy; Comparative National Security Courts; and Comparative Civil Liberties: National Security v. Civil Liberties (European Law on Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, and European Court on Human Rights), Middle East Security; Contemporary Islamic and Middle Eastern Political and Legal Philosophy; Islamic Law and Legal System; Islamic Legal Theory; Contemporary Islamic Legal Thought: Law, State, and World Order; Comparative Law: Application of Islamic Legal System by Muslim States (Theory and Practice); Islamic and Political Movements; Contemporary Islamic and Political Ideology.

Dr. Ansary has given several presentations and speeches, and he has authored several articles in various Arabic newspapers in these and related subjects. He currently serves as Senior Research Fellow of the Arabian Peninsula & Gulf Studies Program (APAG), University of Virginia. Dr. Ansary’s upcoming publications focus on the questions of securitization of national security threats: striking the balance between national security and civil liberties, the legal dimension of national security courts in the European countries, the use of special and emergency measures to protect national security, and national security limitation on the exercise of individual rights. His upcoming publications also focus on Saudi Arabia’s legal responses to terrorism, modern Islamic legal thoughts, research methods in Islamic sciences, and the application of Islamic law in the United States courts.