Yousef Casewit is an American who was born in Cairo and raised in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. He graduated from George Washington University in 2006 with a major in International Affairs (concentrations: Middle Eastern Studies, Latin American Studies) and a minor in Religion. He has traveled extensively throughout the Islamic world, and has studied with Muslim scholars in Mauritania, Morocco and Syria. He is fluent in Arabic (Classical and Moroccan colloquial), French and Spanish, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at Yale University (Religious Studies department). His research interests include Sufism, Qur’anic exegesis and intellectual trends in North Africa and Andalusia. He is currently working on a critical study of the Sufi tafsir of Abu al-Hakam Ibn Barrajan (d. 536/1141).