He holds a PhD from Princeton University and his research interests include Islamic law and Shīʿah Islam. He has published articles focusing on Islamic historiography and the emergence of identity in Muslim religious movements, and he is the author of The Origins of the Shīʿa: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in 8th century Kūfa (Cambridge, 2012) and Shīʿī Islam: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2014). He is currently engaged in research on a historiographical survey of early Shīʿah Islam. Professor Najam Haider has been a Fellow of the Shīʿah Institute since October 2012.