Born in Jakarta, Muhamad Ali is currently an assistant professor at Religious Studies Department and at Southeast Asian Studies (Southeast Asia: Text, Ritual, and Performance [SEATRIP]) of the University of California at Riverside. He was a lecturer at the State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta. Ali received his B.A. in Islamic studies from the State Islamic University (Indonesia), an MM-CAAE from the University of Indonesia and University of Grenoble Paris, an M.Sc. from the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and a Ph.D. in History (Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and World History) from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His manuscript examines the relationship between Dutch, British and Japanese colonialism and transmission of Islamic conservatism in Indonesia and Malaysia. He was a fellow at the East-West Center, Hawaii, where he did a research assistantship on ethnic conflict in Southeast Asia and attended courses on cultural studies.

Specializing in Islamic studies and Southeast Asian Studies, Muhamad Ali has been writing and speaking on jihad, violence and peace, gender relationship, Islam and the West, interfaith dialog and global education, Islam and politics, and religious pluralism. His publications include two books Multicultural-Pluralist Theology (Kompas, 2003), Bridging Islam and the West: An Indonesian View (UshulPress, 2009), articles women and jihad ("Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Culture," 2004), fatwas on interfaith marriage in Indonesia (Studia Islamika, 2003), “they are not all alike: Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals’ perception of Judaism and Jews” (Indonesia and the Malay World, 2010), the rise of liberal Islam network in Indonesia (American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 2005), categories of Muslims (Moussons, Paris, 2007), moderate Islam in Indonesia (2007), religious pluralism and freedom in Indonesia (2007), and Islam in Southeast Asia (2008). Courses that he teaches include Qur’anic studies, Islam and international relations, Muslim politics, Asian religions, Islam in Southeast Asia, religion, politics and public discourse, peace in the Middle East, and approaches to Islam in Religious Studies.