Born in Marburg in 1953, Gudrun Krämer studied History, Islamic and Political Studies, and English Studies, in Heidelberg, Bonn and Sussex between 1972 and 1978. She obtained her Doctorate in Islamic Studies in 1982 at the University of Hamburg, with a research paper on the Jewish minority in Egypt. This was followed by several years as advisor on Middle Eastern Affairs at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Ebenhausen, near Munich. Obtaining a postdoctoral qualification in 1993 with a paper on the topic of “God’s State as a Republic” she took up a professorship in Islamic Studies at the University of Bonn in 1994. In 1996 she accepted a chair at the Free University of Berlin. Guest lectureships and professorships took her to Cairo, Bologna, Paris, Jakarta, Erfurt and Beirut. Since 2007 Gudrun Krämer has also been Director of the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies of the Free University of Berlin, which was established as part of the German government’s Excellence Initiative. She is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and honorary doctor at Tashkent Islamic University. She also belongs to the advisory committees and boards of trustees of the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London, of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Bonn, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn, and the “Cultural Foundations of Integration/Disintegration“ Centre of Excellence at the University of Konstanz. Gudrun Krämer is co-editor of the “Encyclopaedia of Islam Three”. Her publications in German include her works “History of Palestine” (2002) and “History of Islam” (2005) which have appeared in several editions. Most recently in 2010 she published “Hasan al-Banna“, a biography in English of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.