Frankie Martin is an Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University's School of International Service. His research interests include Islamic-Western relations, religion and culture in Africa, and American foreign policy. In 2006, Martin traveled across the Muslim world to study global Islam, conducting field research among diverse groups, including madrassa students in India, Somali refugees in Kenya, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He researched for and was cited extensively in the resulting book, Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization by Professor Akbar Ahmed (Brookings, 2007).

Martin has addressed diverse audiences on Islamic-Western relations, including the British House of Commons, the Brookings Institution, the Washington National Cathedral, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as universities in the US, Middle East, and South Asia. He has been interviewed by media outlets including the BBC, Al Jazeera, and the New York Times, and has also advised American lawmakers and officials at the State Department, FBI, and DHS. He is currently working on "Journey into America" with Professor Akbar Ahmed a book and film project where he has visited 75 US cities and 100 mosques in the past year. Martin is a magna cum laude graduate of American University.

Blog Entries by Frankie Martin

Film on American Muslims Can Help Europe Understand Islam

Posted September 16, 2009 | 01:10 PM (EST)


Last week I attended the European premiere of the film Journey into America at the Culture and Cultures International Film Festival near Toulouse in Southern France.

The film, which premiered in Washington DC on July 4th, is the result of a nine month cross-country trip I took...

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Celebrating July 4th with Rick Warren and 45,000 Muslims

15 Comments | Posted July 7, 2009 | 11:11 AM (EST)


This 4th of July I celebrated America's Independence with Pastor Rick Warren, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), and 45,000 Muslims. We were together in Washington, D.C. as a part of the Islamic Society of North America's (ISNA) annual convention. The Washington Convention Center came alive with halal food stands, people praying...

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Discovering America

3 Comments | Posted June 23, 2009 | 02:58 PM (EST)


As I sat in the American University class "Dialogue or Clash of Civilizations", taught by Akbar Ahmed, American University's Chair of Islamic Studies, little did I know that four years later I would be completing and starring in a major motion picture. This July 4th at 9 PM the film...

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Obama and the Dialogue of Civilizations

1 Comments | Posted June 2, 2009 | 02:57 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama's June 4th speech in Cairo will be one of the most important of his presidency.

The success or failure of Obama's presidency may well depend on his actions in the Muslim world, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan where he has recently committed thousands of additional American...

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Watching Royal Kill with America's Only Muslim Director

Posted April 17, 2009 | 02:08 PM (EST)


Last week I attended the Washington, D.C. area premiere of writer-director Babar Ahmed's action-packed movie Royal Kill, currently running in limited release in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles. The movie boasts an impressive cast including Eric Roberts from The Dark Knight, Lalaine from Lizzie McGuire, WWE wrestler Gail...

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Sons of the Mau Mau

Posted February 19, 2009 | 03:46 PM (EST)


At the beginning of last year, Kenya seemed to be descending into madness. Those scenes return as if from a nightmare: children massacred inside burning churches, mobs using machetes at will in city slums, a country on the brink of breakdown. By the time the dust settled, more than 1,500...

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America's Islamic Slave Roots

Posted January 26, 2009 | 12:42 PM (EST)


While the world watched the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama in Washington D.C., I was far away on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia.

I was on Sapelo -- near the more famous Jekyll Island -- as part of a project called "Journey into America," an American University...

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Doing the Right Thing in Somalia

Posted January 5, 2009 | 04:58 PM (EST)


This week has been an extraordinary one for Somalia.

The past seven days have brought both the resignation of Somalia's president and the beginnings of a military withdrawal by his main backer, Ethiopia. This comes amid an onslaught of pirate attacks off Somalia's volatile coast, the takeover...

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Obama Must Learn to Play Cricket

Posted December 9, 2008 | 06:03 PM (EST)


This week tribal militants in Pakistan launched two brazen attacks on NATO military supplies in the eastern city of Peshawar, torching over 140 military vehicles. The vehicles were destined for Afghanistan, where insurgent attacks have grown bolder and more frequent of late.

This comes amidst a report...

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Hundreds of Somali Muslims Fired for Praying

Posted October 21, 2008 | 03:44 PM (EST)


These are not easy times for Islam in America.

As Barack Obama continues to battle persistent rumors he is Muslim, 28 million DVDs of the film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West have been distributed in newspapers in many swing states. A recent Pew survey found...

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"Right Skin Color, Wrong Religion?"

Posted September 10, 2008 | 10:15 PM (EST)


We got off to a great start in our Islam in America trip in St. Louis, meeting the former governor, Democrat Bob Holden, the Democratic mayor Francis Slay, and members of many different ethnic communities. St Louis has a multitude of communities, from the French Catholics who settled the...

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Journey into America

Posted September 9, 2008 | 07:11 PM (EST)


Two years ago, I was granted the opportunity of a lifetime. My professor at American University, the Islamic scholar Dr. Akbar Ahmed, invited me along with several other young American assistants on a research trip through the Muslim world. We wanted to speak to Muslims to hear their views on...

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Somalia: Time to Pay Attention

Posted July 29, 2008 | 11:27 AM (EST)


While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world's most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there "worse than Darfur."

In the next three months the number of people requiring immediate food...

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