Research Fellows 2026
Lutforahman Saeed
Dr. Lutforahman Saeed is a research fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, where he conducts research on Taliban laws through the lens of the higher objectives of Islamic law (Maqasid al-Shari’ah). He previously served as a faculty member at the Faculty of Islamic Studies (Sharia) at Kabul University (KU), where he taught for over 27 years. Dr. Saeed earned his B.A. in Islamic Studies from Kabul University in 1991, followed by an LL.M. from the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle in 2010. He earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude in Islamic Law and Human Rights from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany, in 2020. His doctoral dissertation received the STAEDTLER Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation in 2020. Dr. Saeed’s research mainly focuses on Islamic law, Islamic studies, and the intersection of custom and human rights, with an emphasis on Afghanistan. His scholarly work includes several articles in national and international academic journals as well as his 2022 monograph, Islam, Custom, and Human Rights in Afghanistan. He was also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Afghan Legal Studies from 2017 to 2022. Through scholarly analysis and engagement with current legal discourse, he aims to amplify critical perspectives on women’s rights in Afghanistan today.
In addition to his academic endeavors, Dr. Saeed has held several significant public and institutional roles. He served as a member and vice president of the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC) for four years. He has also served as a consultant on several Afghanistan-related projects at the CMI research center in Bergen, Norway, and at the Max-Planck Foundation in Heidelberg, Germany. Recently, he has served as a visiting scholar at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where he taught Islamic Law.
Manizha Ashna
Manizha Ashna is a physician and global health researcher whose work explores the intersections of gender, health, and human rights in conflict-affected and low-resource settings. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, where her research examines Afghan women’s lived experiences under Taliban restrictions, with a particular focus on health rights and gender-based inequalities.
Manizha has extensive experience in health research, monitoring and evaluation, and program implementation. She previously served as National Gender Officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Afghanistan, where her work focused on gender mainstreaming in health and emergency settings. She has also worked with Jhpiego, a global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, contributing to initiatives aimed at improving the quality of health services in low-resource contexts. In addition, she has held consultancy roles with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), supporting health projects in Afghanistan and the Republic of the Congo.
Manizha holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) from Balkh University and a Master of Science (MSc) in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is currently completing her PhD in Population Health at the University of Ottawa.
Omar Sadr
Dr. Omar Sadr is a political scientist with over a decade of experience in academia and think tanks. He is a research fellow at the Raoul Wellenburgh Institute for Human Rights. He is also the founding editor-in-chief and host of Negotiating Ideas, an online magazine and podcast on democracy and pluralism. Previously, he worked as a research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, an affiliate scholar at Princeton University, and as an assistant professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). His primary research interests include the political theory of pluralism, governance, human rights, civil resistance, and political Islam. Dr. Sadr has made significant contributions to his field. His book, Negotiating Cultural Diversity in Afghanistan, which won a 2022 book prize for Best Book in Social Science from the Central Eurasian Studies Society, examines the challenges to peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society and develops a political theory of governance of diversity. Dr. Sadr holds a Ph.D. (2018) from South Asian University (SAU), a university established by the SAARC nations. His current research examines the contestation between liberalism, Islamism, and customary values in the third republic of Afghanistan (2001-2021) and investigates authority, legitimacy, and resistance under Taliban rule.
Sadr’s research has been supported by numerous fellowships, including Acton Institute’s Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage, Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL), Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS)’s John F. Richards Fellowship, MESA Global Academy at the Middle East Studies Association, the Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) at the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the CAMCA at the Rumsfeld Foundation and Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He is also a member of the New University in Exile Consortium at The New School in New York.
Nazi Karim
Nazi Karim is a research fellow with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, conducting research on women’s access to the health system in Afghanistan. She is also a final-year PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her thesis explores the violence of everyday life, from direct and indirect violence to the embodied and invisible gendered experience of violence, with a specific ethnographic focus on current experiences of Afghanistani women under the Taliban regime. Prior to this, Karim has conducted ethnographic research with street working children of Kabul in Afghanistan and has also served as a Lecturer at Gawharshad University. Her journey as a researcher and academic is inspired by her lived experience in Afghanistan alongside years of working with women and children of Afghanistan in humanitarian fields within war and conflict zones.
Research Fellows 2025
Maryam Safi
Maryam Safi, an experienced professional in human rights, peace, and conflict resolution from Afghanistan. She holds a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden, earned through a Rotary Scholarship. She also obtained a Master of Arts in Applied Community Change, specializing in Peacebuilding, from Future Generations University in West Virginia, USA, supported by the Kathryn W. Davis Peacebuilding Scholarship. Additionally, Maryam holds a Bachelor’s degree in Islamic Law from the Sharia Law Faculty of Kabul University in Afghanistan.
Currently, Maryam is conducting research on the right to education in Afghanistan, with a focus on education and peace, exploring “Understanding education under the Taliban-era: Why do the Taliban use school curricula and textbooks as tools to consolidate their military victory?.”
With over a decade of experience in human rights and peacebuilding, Maryam specializes in women’s education and empowerment, human rights advocacy, research, and program development and management. As a Program Manager for Students’ Experiences at ReDI School of Digital Integration in Malmö, she played a key role in advancing the integration and empowerment of immigrant women through tech education. She also managed the Human Rights portfolio at Open Society Foundations in Afghanistan, advocating for and supporting women’s rights issues in the country.
Her work has extended to youth empowerment and political participation, where she contributed to establishing youth councils in eight regions of Afghanistan, equipping young people with leadership skills, and advocating for Afghan youth policy, which she presented at the first Global Forum on Youth Policies.
Additionally, Maryam has contributed to various research publications through her work with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), Democracy International (DI), and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).
Maryam Safi remains a catalyst for positive change in Afghanistan and beyond through her enduring commitment to human rights, peace, and education.
The programme is financially supported by:
