Nora Schmid

Nora K. Schmid is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen (SFB 1391). She has studied Arabic and French languages and literatures at Freie Universität Berlin and at the INALCO in Paris. She has held research positions in the Corpus Coranicum project (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2007-2012), in the SFB 980 (Freie Universität Berlin, 2012-2018), and in the project “Qur’anic Commentary: An Integrative Paradigm” (University of Oxford, 2019-2022). In 2016, she was a Global Humanities Junior Fellow at Harvard University. In 2022/23, she was Acting Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Hamburg and in 2023/24 Departmental Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford (Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies). Nora K. Schmid’s research interests include the Qur’an, premodern Islamic religious and intellectual culture and history (e.g., asceticism), premodern Arabic literature (notably poetry and sermons), the intellectual and literary traditions of pre-Islamic Arabia, and Islamic law.

Nevin Reda

Nevin Reda is an Associate Professor of Muslim Studies at Emmanuel College, Victoria University in the University of Toronto. Her research spans Qurʾanic studies, Islamic ethical-legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), and interreligious pedagogy.

With a primary focus on Qurʾanic studies, Reda integrates perspectives from literary theory, Islamic spiritual care, and Biblical Hebrew, in which she holds a master’s degree. Her current work examines the structure and organization of the Qurʾan, particularly Surat al-Anʿām, in what she terms the poetics and hermeneutics of Qurʾanic narrative structure. In uṣūl al-fiqh, she focuses on developing methodologies that promote greater equity and justice, including her collaboration with Musawah on the “Building Egalitarian Ethics and Jurisprudence of Muslim Marriages” project.

At Emmanuel College, Reda’s interest in interreligious pedagogy has led her to explore connections between Christian practical theology and Islamic theological traditions.

Mohsen Goudarzi

Mohsen Goudarzi joined the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in July 2021, after previously teaching at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. A specialist in Qur’anic Studies, his work is reshaping foundational perspectives in the field.

Goudarzi’s scholarship explores the intellectual and social dimensions of Islam’s early development, with a particular focus on the Qur’an’s connections to Late Antique literature and its textual evolution. His interests extend to various disciplines within Islamic studies, including tafsīr (Qur’anic exegesis), kalām (theology), and fiqh (Islamic law). Currently, he is authoring a book that reinterprets central aspects of the Qur’an’s worldview, such as its portrayal of scriptural and prophetic history.

Recognized for his commitment to teaching, Goudarzi earned a certificate from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Educational Innovation. During his time as a teaching fellow at Harvard, he was honored three times with a certificate of distinction in teaching from the Office of Undergraduate Education.

Alba Fedeli

Alba Fedeli is a Research Associate at the Asien-Afrika-Institut, Universität Hamburg, working on the transmission of early qurʾanic manuscripts. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, UK, after studying in Italy with Sergio Noja Noseda. Fedeli stirred up media frenzy after the BBC announcement that the “Birmingham Qurʾan” manuscript dates to Muhammad’s lifetime. Her publications reflect her research interests in early Qurʾanic manuscripts. Her work on the Mingana-Lewis palimpsest has been uploaded on the Cambridge Digital Library.

Suleyman Dost

Secretary | Dr. Suleyman Dost is an Assistant Professor of Late Antiquity and Early Islam at the University of Toronto. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2017. Dr. Dost’s research and teaching interests include history of late antique Arabia and Ethiopia, pre-Islamic Arabian epigraphy and Qur’anic Studies. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the historical, religious and linguistic context of the Qur’an’s origins through a study of pre-Islamic inscriptions from the Arabian peninsula.

Johanne Christiansen

Johanne Louise Christiansen, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Department of the Study of Religions, University of Southern Denmark. Her research focuses on the application of theoretical perspectives from other research fields, such as the study of religions, to the Qur’an. Among Christiansen’s recent work are the article “God Loves not the Wrongdoers (zalimun): Formulaic Repetition as a Rhetorical Strategy in the Qur’an” (Journal of Qur’anic Studies 22/1, 2020, 92-132) and the forthcoming book The Exceptional Qur’an: Flexible and Exceptive Rhetoric in Islam’s Holy Book (Gorgias Press, 2021).

Holger Zellentin

Chair |

Holger Zellentin is Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at the University of Tübingen. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has previously held faculty appointments at the Graduate Theological Union and the University of California, Berkeley, at the University of Nottingham, and at the University of Cambridge. Zellentin works on Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism and on the relationship of the Qurʾan to late antique law and narrative. His publications include The Qurʾan’s Reformation of Judaism and Christianity: Return to the Origins, The Qurʾan’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure, and Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian Literature.

Johanna Pink

President |

Johanna Pink is professor of Islamic Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. She taught at Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Tuebingen. Her main fields of interest are the transregional history of tafsir in the modern period and Qur’an translations with a particular focus on transregional dynamics. She is the Principal Investigator of the research project “GloQur — The Global Qur’an” and general editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an Online. Her most recent monograph is entitled Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today (Equinox, 2019).

Shari Lowin

Shari L. Lowin is Professor of Islamic and Jewish Studies in the Religious Studies Department of Stonehill College. Her research centers on the interplay between Islamic and Jewish texts in the early and early medieval Islamic periods, focusing mainly on exegetical narratives. She is the author of The Making of a Forefather: Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegetical Narratives as well as Arabic and Hebrew Love Poems of al-Andalus, a study of these exegetical narratives in the desire poetry of Spain. Her current project reexamines the qurʾanic verses attributed to the Jews in light of the midrash and piyyut. She is the editor of the Review of Qurʾanic Research.