Dr Shiraz Maher, FRHistS
Reader in Non-State Actors
Centre for Statecraft and National Security

Research Interests

• Contemporary Syria (The Civil War and post-war transition)
• Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Vision 2030 and legal reforms)
• Non-state Actors in the Middle East (particularly their use of violence and governance models)
• Islamic movements (especially jihadist organisations)
• Islamic political thought // Intellectual history (focusing on the doctrine of soteriology; Islamic law; and military jurisprudence)
• Religious authority in contemporary Islam

 

Dr Shiraz Maher is a Reader in Non-State Actors in the Department of War Studies and a member of the Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS), a research centre within the department. He has previously taught at Johns Hopkins University and Washington College, and is a member of the Royal Historical Society.

Dr Maher is a historian by training and is primarily interested in the development of Islamic political thought, particularly the use of theology by reactionary and militant movements. Dr Maher also works on the Syrian Civil War, the internationalisation of the conflict, and the post-war transition. More recently, he has been looking at how non-state actors provide alternative administration in newly ungoverned spaces across the Middle East and North Africa, and is also interested in Saudi Arabia and its plans for religious reform under Vision 2030.

His book, Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (Oxford University Press; Hurst & Co; Penguin) has been widely acknowledged as a ground-breaking exploration of the political philosophy behind contemporary jihadist movements. It has been described as “a masterclass in how to do intellectual history” by Tom Holland, a “must-read work” by the Economist, and was picked as a book of the year by Foreign Affairs magazine for 2017. The Guardian also listed it among its “best books to understand modern terrorism,” in 2019. The Wall Street Journal argued, “Maher deserves praise for producing a book that is the first of its kind.”

Dr Maher is also a contributing writer for the New Statesman, writing on the Syrian crisis and the broader Middle East. Much of his work is based on fieldwork conducted across the world, including interviews with members of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusrah, Ahrar al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army. He has interviewed more than 100 Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. He was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for his New Statesman pieces in 2016.

 

Research  

Dr Maher led the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) in a variety of leadership positions from 2016 until its merger with CSNS in 2025. During this time, he won more than £10M in research grants as either Principal Investigator (PI) or co-Principal Investigator from a variety of sources including research councils, governments, and industry. He has won the King’s award for Research Innovation and Impact on two separate occasions.

He created the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) in 2020 which aims to better understand terrorist use of technology. Backed by some of the world’s best known technology companies – including Google, Facebook, Microsoft (and formerly Twitter) – this project reimagined the nature of traditional academic outputs to help technology companies address fast-moving challenges relating to real-world harms. He has also directly advised a range of tech companies about terrorist abuse of their platforms.

Dr Maher is also PI for the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project which is backed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), reporting to its Research and Evidence Directorate (RED). This is a major research grant which explores the factors that shape violent and peaceful behaviour in conflict, to inform effective policy and programme responses in government.

He also led ICSR to become the first institution outside of the United States to be recognised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a Centre of Excellence. This workstream studied malevolent creativity in terrorist attacks, exploring how different terrorist groups learn from one another with regards to factors such as attack planning, and technological innovation including the weaponisation of commercially available drones and the threat posed by 3D printed guns.

Most recently, Dr Maher co-convened a series of private “track-2” dialogues with key stakeholders across Europe and the United States, bringing together decision-makers and other parties to brainstorm ways of mitigating the risks posed by up to 80,000 ISIS detainees held in north-eastern Syria (this project ran until the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024).

 

Public engagement Research Interests

Since 2015, Dr Maher regularly briefed the Global Coalition against ISIL/Daesh, presenting his research at meetings held in London, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. These meetings involved over 40 ministers or deputy-ministers from member states of the Coalition, in addition to supporting NGOs. He has also presented his findings to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE), the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), and to a variety of government agencies in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, the Gulf, and across Europe.

Dr Maher has given evidence before three parliamentary committees in the UK looking at the Syrian conflict, the flow of foreign fighters into the country, and the rise of Islamic State. He has also given evidence to the Mayor of London’s Police and Crime Committee on Counter-Terrorism and Radicalisation. In 2014 he was invited by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver the “Henriette van Lynden Lecture”, an annual lecture series for leading experts on the Middle East and North Africa.

Beyond the academy, he has regularly served as a consultant on television, film, and theatre productions relating to terrorism including work for the National Theatre, the BBC’s “Silent Witness” series, and “Atomic”, a 5-part drama for Sky Atlantic for which he was the technical consultant.

 

Teaching

Dr Maher is co-convener of the MA on Terrorism, Security and Society and teaches on the following modules (and guest lectures on a wide variety of others):

• Terrorism and Counter Terrorism (MA)

• Understanding Political Islam: Theories, Thinkers and Movements (MA)

• Homegrown Radicalisation and Counter-Radicalisation in the West (MA)

• The War on Terror (BA)

He currently supervises five PhD candidates on a variety of topics and has supervised another four to completion. Please note, Dr Maher is not currently considering new PhD proposals.

 

Publications

Books

• Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (Oxford University Press; Hurst & Co.; Penguin).

• The Rule is for None but Allah: Islamist Approaches to Governance (Oxford University Press; Hurst & Co) [Co-edited with Joana Cook]

Refereed Journals and Book Chapters

• ‘“Extremism in all things is wrong”: Contextualising Mohammed bin Salman's Legal Reforms in Saudi Arabia,’ In Joana Cook and Shiraz Maher (eds.), The Rule Is for None but Allah: Islamist Approaches to Governance (Oxford University Press; 2022).

• “Drivers of Jihadist Terrorism: Understanding the Ideological Antecedents of Salafi-Jihadi Terrorism,” in Anthony Richards, editor, Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses. (London; IB Tauris).

• “The primacy of praxis: Clerical authority in the Syrian conflict,” in Charles Lister and Paul Salem, editors, Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Drivers Fuelling Armed Non-State Actors and Extremist Groups, Washington, D.C.; Middle East Institute.

• ‘Al-Qadā’ wa-l-Qadr: Motivational Representations of Divine Decree and Predestination in Salafi-Jihadi Literature’, International Journal of Middle East Studies [co-authored with Alexandra Bissoondath].

• “Change and Continuity: Hizb ut Tahrir’s strategy and ideology in Britain”, in Eileen Barker, editor, Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements. Ashgate.

• “Between ‘engagement’ and a ‘values-led’ approach: Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood from 9/11 to the Arab Spring,” [co-authored with Martyn Frampton] in Lorenzo Vidino, editor, Western reactions to the rise of Islamists in the MENA. Al-Mesbar.

Reports

• Understanding cross-ideological innovation: an exploration of jihadist and racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism. ICSR. [with Charlie Winter and Marc-Andre Argentino]

• Literature Review: Innovation, Creativity and the Interplay Between Far right and Islamist Extremism. ICSR, [with Charlie Winter and James Barnett].

• Understanding Salafi‑Jihadist Attitudes Towards Innovation. ICSR. [with Aymenn Jawad Ali al-Tamimi and Charlie Winter].

• Mapping terrorist exploitation of and migration between online communication and content-hosting platforms. Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST). [with Amarnath Amarasingham and Charlie Winter].

• Decoding Hate: Using Experimental Text Analysis to Classify Terrorist Content. Global Network on Extremism and Terrorism. GNET. [with Abdullah Alrhmoun and Charlie Winter].

• The Cost of Crying Victory: Policy Implications of the Islamic State’s Territorial Collapse. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. [with Liesbeth van der Heide and Charlie Winter].

• Through the looking glass: using social media to predict violent offline behaviour. Nanyang Technical University, Singapore. [with Peter Neumann]

• Pain, confusion, anger, and shame: the stories of Islamic State families. ICSR. [with Peter Neumann].

• #Greenbirds: Measuring importance and influence in Syrian foreign fighter networks. ICSR. [with Joseph Carter and Peter Neumann].

• The Arab Spring and its impact on supply and production in global markets. European Centre for Energy and Resource Security.

• “What Jihadists Thought About Boston,”. Foreign Affairs. [with Samar Batrawi].

• Al-Qaeda at the crossroads: how the terror group is responding to the loss of its leaders and the Arab Spring. ICSR. [with Peter Neumann]

• Lights, Camera, Jihad: Al-Shabaab’s Western media strategy. ICSR. [with Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens].

• “Jihadis React to Bin Laden’s Death: Islamist websites and the future of al-Qaeda,” Foreign Affairs.

• “Preventing Violent Extremism: Lessons from the Government’s revised “Reviewing the Prevent strategy,” World Defence Systems.

• Ties that Bind: How the story of Muslim soldiers can forge a national identity. Policy Exchange.

• Choosing our friends wisely: criteria for engagement with Muslim groups. Policy Exchange. [with Martyn Frampton].

Essays

• Dr Maher has published a book’s worth of essays in the New Statesman primarily about the Syrian Civil War. These can be read here.

• More recently, Dr Maher has published a series of extended essays on Syria’s transition for Engelsberg Ideas. These can be read here.