Edmund Hayes gained his doctorate with honors from the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He works on early Islamic history, in particular Shiʿi history, focusing on the intersection of intellectual developments and social and political dynamics. He is a founder-member of the Shiʿi Studies Group at the University of Chicago.

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Edmund Hayes comes to Leiden University as assistant professor in January 2024. He is a historian of Islam and the medieval Middle East. His particular focus has been the social history of early Shiʿa Islam, especially in its Imami and Twelver strands, giving rise to his 2022 monograph, Agents of the Hidden Imam: Forging Twelver Shi‘ism, 850-950 CE, and numerous articles on the institutions of Imami Shiʿism, including alms tax collection, agents, epistolary culture, pilgrimage and excommunication. He has also written on topics relating to the social and cultural and intellectual history of the medieval Middle East, including sexuality and the body, ethnic and cultural identity, and the history of water management. From 2024-2028 he will be Principal Investigator on the ERC Starting Grant funded project, Embodied Imamate: Mapping the Development of the Early Shiʿi Community 700-900 CE.

Publications