Daoud Stephen Casewit retired from his position as President of the American Islamic College in Chicago in August 2020, after having served for four years. He currently resides with his wife in the Washington, DC area where he continues to work part-time as an independent scholar, writer, translator and lecturer as he had done for several years before going to Chicago. Casewit spent most of his previous professional life in the Arab world, including nearly a quarter century in Morocco where he managed the Moroccan-American Fulbright Commission (1996–2009) and founded and directed the Arabic Language Institute in Fez (1991–96). From 1984–88, while serving as a university instructor of English as a foreign language and linguistics in Madinah, he developed an intimate acquaintance with the history and geography of the Prophet’s (PBUH) city. He has published a number of academic papers and delivered a range of guest lectures on related topics including at Harvard, Yale and Brandeis universities and numerous Islamic centers. He prepared the appendix of historical maps for the HarperCollins Study Quran (2015) as well as the table of Hadith references cited in the work. He holds a graduate degree in linguistics from the American University in Cairo where he also earned a bachelors in Arabic. His interests include Qur’anic recitation (tajwid) which he has taught to small groups for many years. He embraced Islam in 1977 and is the father of four children who have blessed him with four grandchildren.