Omer Awass is an associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American Islamic College in Chicago, IL. His current research interests center on religion, modernity, and globalization. He has been carrying out field research on contemporary fatwas across the Muslim world to assess how they are negotiating their postcolonial realities. His book Fatwa and the Making and Renewal of Islamic Law is published by Cambridge University Press (2023). He is completing his second book titled: Imposing Modernity-Studies in Coloniality and Decoloniality of the Global South with an on Emphasis Muslim Societies and States. He has recently published articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of World-Systems Research, Journal of Critical Historical Studies, and the Sociology of Islam Journal. He has spent more than thirteen years of his life studying, researching, and teaching in various African and Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Morocco, Kenya, Senegal, Singapore, and Tanzania. In the summer of 2022 and the winter of 2023, he studied Mandarin in Taiwan. In the winter of 2024, he furthered his study of Mandarin and Chinese culture in China. These latest undertakings are paving the way for his long-term research project in comparative civilization between China and the Muslim World.