A child of immigrants from Pakistan, Daanish Faruqi was born and raised in New Jersey.  He graduated from Rutgers University with majors in Political Science, Sociology, Economics, and Criminal Justice, and with a minor in Religions.  Following graduation he spent nearly two years in the Middle East as a human rights researcher for an Egyptian development thinktank, and as an independent op-ed columnist covering human rights issues in the Arab world.  He is currently completing his M.A. in Islamic Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he focuses on pre-modern Islamic intellectual history, Islamic political thought, and the history of Sufism.  Insha’Allah he plans to subsequently pursue doctoral work in intellectual history, comparatively situating modern Islamic intellectual history in conversation with Western thought, more specifically that of the European Enlightenment