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Current Research Projects

• “Classical Arabic Oratory: The Rhetoric and Politics of Public Address in the Islamic World.”
• “The Path of Eloquence (Nahj al-balagha): ‘Ali b. Abi Talib’s Orations, Epistles, and Wisdom Sayings, and their Influence on the Development of Arabic Prose.”

Publications

Book

• Al-Mu’ayyad al-Shirazi and Fatimid Da’wa Poetry: A Case of Commitment in Classical Arabic Literature, 412 pages, volume 57 in the series Islamic History and Civilization, ed. Wadad Kadi and Rotraud Wielandt, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. Link
• Reviewed by Saiyad N. Ahmad in Journal of Arabic Literature 38.2 (2007), pp. 220-26. PDF
• Translation from book of poem titled “O Progeny of Mustafa” reprinted in An Anthology of Ismaili Literature: A Shi’i Vision of Islam, ed. H. Landolt, S. Sheikh, & K. Kassam, I.B. Tauris, 2008, pp. 260-65. PDF

  Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• “Fatimid Aspirations of Conquest and Doctrinal Underpinnings in the Poetry of al-Qa’im bi’Amri’llah, Ibn Hani’, Tamim, and al-Mu’ayyad,” in Poetry and History: The Value of Poetry in Reconstructing Arab History, Proceedings of a conference held at the American University of Beirut in January 2008, ed. Tarif Khalidi, Ramzi Baalbaki, and Saleh Said Agha, AUB Press, forthcoming.
• “ Khutba: The Evolution of Early Arabic Oration,” in Classical Arabic Humanities in their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on his 65 th Birthday, ed. Beatrice Gruendler, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2008, pp. 176-273. PDF
• “Arabic in India: A Survey and Classification of its Uses, Compared with Persian,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 127:3 (2007), pp. 315-338. PDF
• “Ali b. Abi Talib,” in Arabic Literary Culture, 500-925, vol. 311 in series Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. eds. Michael Cooperson and Shawkat Toorawa, Thomson Gale, 2005, pp. 68-76. PDF
• "Healing the Soul: Perspectives of Medieval Muslim Writers," Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 2 (1995), pp. 62-87. PDF

Encyclopedia Entries

• “India,” in Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. Kees Versteegh, Brill Academic Publishers, vol. 2, 2006, pp. 325-331. PDF
• “Women Poets,” in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, 2006, ed. Josef Meri, Routledge, vol. 2, pp. 865-867. PDF
• “ Fatima (al-Zahra’) bint Muhammad,” in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, 2006, ed. Josef Meri, Routledge, vol. 1, pp. 248-250. PDF
• “Zaynab bint Ali,” Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, vol. 14, pp. 9937-9939. PDF

Courses Taught

• Classical Arabic poetry (text focused seminars, including: Mutanabbi; Pre-Islamic Poetry; Abbasid Poetry; Classical Poetics)
• Classical Arabic prose (text focused seminars, including: Maqamat; Khutba; Nahj al-Balagha)
• Classical Arabic Literature in Translation (including: Survey of Arabic Literature; Women in Arabic Literature; Arabic Wisdom Literature; Sufi (Mystical) Literature; Sensuality, Madness & Grace: The Prose & Poetry of Love)
• Advanced Arabic Syntax (focuses on syntax theory and application, and on structure-oriented readings in different genres from the corpus of classical Arabic texts; the course also includes some morphology, prosody, and rhetoric)

Education

Harvard University - Cambridge, Massachusetts
· Ph.D. in Arabic Literature with departmental distinction. (1999)
· A.M. in Arabic Literature. (1994)

Ain Shams University - Cairo, Egypt
· Tamhidi Magister in Arabic Language & Literature. (1990)
· License in Arabic Language & Literature (equivalent to 4-year BA degree in the United States; 1988)

Recent Research Fellowships

• The Carnegie Corporation of New York: Carnegie Scholar (2008-09) http://www.carnegie.org/sub/news/2008_scholars.html
• The University of Chicago Franke Institute for the Humanities: Franke Fellow (2006-07)

Select Presentations

• “Nature Imagery in the Classical Arabic Oration (Khutba): Aesthetics of Orality and Persuasion,” American Oriental Society, Chicago (March, 2008).
• “Al-Mu’ayyad al-Shīrāzī on the Isma’ili ‘Imam of the Age’ and his Authority to Interpret the Qur’an and Shari’a,” invited conference on “The Shaping of Many Islams: Struggle over Authority between God, Texts, and People,” Smith College, Northampton, MA (April, 2008).
• “Fatimid Aspirations for World Hegemony: Political History and Religious Ideology in the Matrix of Poetry,” invited conference on “The Value of Poetry in Reconstructing Arab/Islamic History,” American University of Beirut, Beirut. (January, 2008).
• “Contemplations on this World and the Hereafter in the khutbas of Ali in the Nahj al-balagha,” Middle East Studies Association, Boston (November, 2006).
• "The Early Arabic Khutba (Oration): Terminology, Applications, and Literary Features," American Oriental Society, Seattle. (March, 2006).
• “Arabic in India: A Sacred Language,” American Oriental Society, San Diego. (March 2004). Also presented at a conference funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, titled “Middle-Eastern Islam from Afar,” Bellagio, Italy. (February, 2003).
• “Metaphor as Manifestation: Religious Symbolism in Fatimid-Tayyibi Poetry,” American Oriental Society, Nashville, Tennessee. (April, 2003). Also presented at the University of Chicago’s Franke Institute for the Humanities (May, 2003).
• “Communion with God: Early Attestations of the Munajat Genre in the Poetry of the Fatimid Da’i al-Mu’ayyad," Arabic Colloquium, Yale University. (December 1999).
• "Fatimid Concepts of the Imamate in the Poetry of al-Mu’ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi," Islamic Studies Workshop, Harvard University. (December 1998).