Academic Bio
Firas Alkhateeb is a PhD student in Islamic thought interested in post-classical Ḥanafī legal theory in the Ottoman Empire and its intersections with theology and political theory. He is particularly interested in the manner in which 14th century Ottoman jurists understood themselves and their work in relation to the existing pre-Ottoman and pre-Mongol Ḥanafī tradition.
He holds a B.A. in History from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, where he wrote a master’s thesis on Ottoman şeyhülislam Ebū's-Suʿūd’s legal theory titled “Post-Classical Ḥanafī Legal Theory: The Cash Waqf in Relation to the Ottoman State.” He has also studied the Islamic sciences with scholars of the Islamic tradition in Chicago and Istanbul.
Firas has a background in secondary education, having worked as a high school history teacher for five years before coming to the University of Chicago. During that time, he wrote an introductory text on Islamic history for high school students titled "Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilization from the Past."