Religious Life

IN LOVING MEMORY

Princeton’s Office of Religious Life shares the heartbreaking news of the death of our beloved Muslim Chaplain, Sohaib Sultan.  Visit this page for reflections and archival recordings in memory of Imam Sohaib. He died of metastatic cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, which was diagnosed in the spring of 2020.  He spent the remaining year of his life with even more spiritual abundance than before, writing and preaching and speaking in many settings.  Over the years he was a marvelous instructor to all of us in how to live.  In his last year he taught us even more so how to die.

Sohaib came to Princeton’s Office of Religious Life as its first full-time Muslim Chaplain in August 2008, at which time he was only the second such institutionally-supported university Muslim chaplain in the United States.  He created an extraordinary program at Princeton, one that serves as a national model for its expansiveness of programming, breadth of inclusion of all Muslims and non-Muslims, its intellectual depth, its beauty, challenge, support, and relevance.  Sohaib built a wonderful and caring Muslim community at Princeton, and often said that this fact provided his greatest sense of joy and accomplishment in his work.  

Sohaib studied at Indiana University and in the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary.  His first professional passion was journalism, and after his move into chaplaincy he continued to be a prolific writer.  He is the author of The Koran for Dummies (Wiley, 2004), The Qur’an and Sayings of the Prophet:  Selections Annotated and Explained (Skylight Paths, 2007), as well as many articles for TIME Online, the Huffington Post, and other publications.

Sohaib is survived by his wife Arshe Ahmed, their daughter Radiyya Sultan-Ahmed, his parents and sister.  Our hearts go out to them all.  A memorial gathering for Sohaib will be held at Princeton when it is safe to do so, hopefully this fall.

        - Alison Boden, Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel

 _{Photo: Sameer Khan}