She holds a PhD from Yale University and she teaches in all areas of Islamic Shīʿah history with a special interest in the transformation of juristic thought, the ʿulamāʾ’s legal authority, and relations of power in Shīʿī society in sixteenth and seventeenth century Iran. She is the author of Converting Persia: Religion and Power in Safavid Iran (London, 2004) and The Shi`ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism and Hizbullah’s Islamists (New York, 2014), co-authored with Malek Abisaab, and has contributed articles to journals including The Muslim World, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab has been a Fellow of the Shīʿah Institute since January 2016.