Hayward, Joel S. A.

Joel Hayward (born 1964) is a New Zealand-born British scholar, academic and writer. He has been listed in the 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions of The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims. He has been the Dean of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell, the Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences as well as Director of the Institute for International and Civil Security at Khalifa University, and the Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College in the United Kingdom. He is now the Dean of the Sycamore Leadership Academy, based in Istanbul. He is also a member of the management board of the Association of British Muslims, which he serves as Director of Leadership and Academic Affairs. He was tutor to Prince William of Wales, the heir apparent to the British throne. He is best known for his published books and articles on strategic and security matters, including the use of air power, his work on leadership, his 2003 biography of Horatio Lord Nelson, his writing and teaching on the Islamic concepts of war, strategy and conflict, his Sirah works on Muhammad, and his works of fiction and poetry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. One of his most recent books, The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction, was chosen as the Best International Non-Fiction Book at the 2021 Sharjah International Book Awards. For his book The Warrior Prophet: Muhammad and War, Hayward won an International Author Excellence Award 2025 from the International Authors' Association.