Abdel-Samad was born as the third of five children, the son of a Muslim Sunni imam. Abdel-Samad came to Germany in 1995 at the age of 23. He soon married an 18-years-older, “rebellious, left-wing teacher with a penchant for mysticism”. Abdel-Samad studied Japanese, English and French in Cairo as well as political science in Augsburg. He worked as a scholar in Erfurt and Braunschweig. In Japan, where he was involved with eastern spirituality, he met his second wife. He taught and conducted research until the end of 2009 at the Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich; his dissertation topic was: Bild der Juden in ägyptischen Schulbüchern (“Image of the Jews in Egyptian textbooks”). Subsequently he decided to become a full-time professional writer.
(From: Wikipedia)
