R. David Coolidge, Ph.D.

Research Faculty

Bayan Email: dcoolidge@bayanonline.org

R. David Coolidge is Research Faculty at Bayan Islamic Graduate School. He was previously the Associate University Chaplain for the Muslim Community at Brown University, the Muslim Advisor at Dartmouth College, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service at New York University. He received a PhD from the Graduate Theological Union in 2023, and an MA in Religion from Princeton University in 2008. He has served on the boards of various American Muslim nonprofit organizations, including Zaytuna College, Taleef Collective, and Al-Kisa Foundation. As a preacher, he has given hundreds of sermons/talks and led prayers in dozens of Sunnī and Shīʿī masjids around the country. R. David Coolidge has produced numerous academic publications, as well as books and articles of relevance to the wider American Muslim community.

Books

"Hindu Bhakti Through Muslim Eyes: Islam and Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism in the 21st Century" (Routledge: 2025)
"The Beautiful Surrender: Islam as a Path to Be Walked" (Createspace: 2018)

Select Academic Articles

"Devotional Detachment: The Islamic Virtue of Zuhd & Rūpa Gosvāmī's Upadeśāmṛta" Journal of Interreligious Studies 40 (2023)
"Human Instruments, Divine Actions: Exploring Gita 11.33 and Qur'an 8:17" Journal of Vaishnava Studies 31.2 (2023)
"One Out of Many: The Civic and Religious in American Muslim Life" Religions 14.2 *(2023)
"Islamic Education in the United States: Debates, Practices, Institutions" (co-authored with Prof. Zareena Grewal) in The Cambridge Companion to American Islam (Cambridge University Press: 2013)

Select American Muslim Community Content

"Sunni-Shi'i Engagement (with Ustadh Ubaydallah Evans) ALIM Program interview (2023)"
"The Past, Present and Future of Muslim Scholarship on the Hindu Tradition" Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies (2022)
"Culture: Making Islam Like the Air We Breathe" ICCNC Friday Khuṭba (2021)
"A Journey Within Islam" Diffused Congruence Podcast (2020)