avg_rating: 3.74
name: Alexander Knysh
about: Trained as an Arabist and historian of the Islamic Middle East in the former Soviet Union, Alexander Knysh combines expertise in Arabic literature (both pre-modern and modern) with the knowledge of the history, religions, and cultures of the Middle East. He has been teaching and conducting research in all these fields of academic endeavor over the past twenty-five years. In 1994, he joined the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor. In 1998, he was promoted to the rank of Professor of Islamic Studies. From 1998 until 2004, he served as chair of the department. In 1997-1998, he held the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Arabic and Middle East Studies, University of Exete Trained as an Arabist and historian of the Islamic Middle East in the former Soviet Union, Alexander Knysh combines expertise in Arabic literature (both pre-modern and modern) with the knowledge of the history, religions, and cultures of the Middle East. He has been teaching and conducting research in all these fields of academic endeavor over the past twenty-five years. In 1994, he joined the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor. In 1998, he was promoted to the rank of Professor of Islamic Studies. From 1998 until 2004, he served as chair of the department. In 1997-1998, he held the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Arabic and Middle East Studies, University of Exeter, UK. Although this was a permanent academic appointment, he chose to return to Michigan after one year in England.He moved to the U.S. from Russia (at that time, the Soviet Union) in 1991. While there he held the post of a researcher at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Before he took up my current academic position at Michigan, he was awarded two research fellowships - one by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1991-1992) and the other by the Rockefeller foundation at Washington University, St Louis (1992-1993). During his fellowship years he was working, among other projects, on a study of the long theological polemic over the legacy of the great Arab-Muslim mystical thinker Ibn [al-]'Arabi (1165-1240). This study, which was published by the SUNY Press in 1998, provided a detailed analysis of the fierce scholarly debates around Ibn 'Arabi's mystical and metaphysical ideas-debates that have had wide-ranging impact upon Islamic theology and mysticism. Two years later, in 2000, his second book in English, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History, was published by the E.J. Brill Publishers in Leiden. Unlike his study of Ibn 'Arabi's controversial legacy, this monograph was designed to serve as an accessible introduction to the historical evolution of Sufi movements in different areas of the Muslim world.More recently, he has been working on several other academic projects, including a book-size study of the cult of saints and pilgrimage centers in Yemen and a study of the changing representations of Islam and the Muslims in Russian academic and popular discourses and mass media following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. His latest project, "Islam and Empire in the Northern Caucasus," explores the history and ideological underpinnings of Muslim resistance to the Russian conquest and subsequent domination of the North Caucasus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Simultaneously, he continues to pursue his longstanding interest in the history of Sufi movement and thought in Islam. His annotated translation and study of al-Qushayri's manual on Sufism - a major monument of Sufi literature from the eleventh century C.E. which is still being studied by Sufis today - has been published by the Garnet Press, UK.He currently serves as the Section Editor for Sufism on the Editorial Board of the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the most authoritative reference in the field of Islamic Studies. Additionally, he has strong interest in and commitment to Qur'anic studies. He has written five major articles for the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an (E.J. Brill, Leiden) and contributed a chapter on Qur'anic influences on Islamic literature(s) and culture(s) to the recently published Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an. In addition to his specialty, he takes serious interest in European and Russian history and culture and keeps abreast of recent methodological advances in the fields of literary and textual criticism, religious studies, cultural anthropology and methods of historical research. ...more