Mark Sedgwick trained as a historian at Oxford University, taught for many years at the American University in Cairo, and finally moved to Denmark, where he is Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University. He is also Chair of the Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. His work has focused mostly on Islam, Sufism, Traditionalism and terrorism. He's known especially for his book Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century and his work on radicalization.