I am a lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, following a B.A. degree in French Literature from the University of Chicago. After completing my doctoral dissertation I spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University, and two years at the Mandel Scholion Research Center in Jerusalem.
My primary area of research is Islamic theology, with a particular emphasis on the salafī tradition of Sunnī Islam. To date my principal contributions to the research literature are two books: Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge, 2012) and Salafī Political Theology (Cambridge, forthcoming), based on my M.A. thesis and doctoral dissertation respectively (the latter written under the supervision of Professors Ella Landau-Tasseron and Yohanan Friedmann). Both works investigate dimensions of continuity between the pre-modern salafī theological tradition inaugurated by Taqī al-Dīn b. Taymiyya (d. 1328 C.E.) and modern salafism.
Radical Islam treats the topic of the relation between faith and acts as a theological issue, the continuity of polemic on the topic from Ibn Taymiyya to the present day, and the 'policy' implications of the differing positions in the polemic for different groups of contemporary salafīs. On a more general level my approach aimed to highlight the depth, complexity, and centrality of theological concerns to modern salafism. Despite the rapid spread of salafī doctrine and adherence in the twentieth century, academic attention to the field dates only to the start of the new millennium and at first was overly influenced by a security studies angle. While a significant portion of my own research is indeed devoted to radical salafism and the militant groups affiliated with it, I have always favored the emic perspective and the attempt to elucidate forms of salafī self-understanding.
Salafī Political Theology is broader in scope and focuses on a tension within the Islamic tradition (and indeed within the Abrahamic traditions in general) between two rival conceptions of faith: monotheism understood as a propositional attitude, and monolatry, i.e. the devotion of exclusive worship to one God. The first part of the book argues that Ibn Taymiyya and the salafī tradition are unique in their exceptionally clear articulation of this distinction and their privileging of monolatry over conceptual monotheism, while the second examines the manner in which contemporary salafīs have applied these principles to the legal-political realm in response to modern secularization processes. In methodological approach the book combines the traditional Islamic Studies emphasis on close textual analysis with an overarching framework grounded in the field of political theology.
Additional areas of interest and research include: Wahhābī history, Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb, the literature of the kalām, the Muslim cult of saints, and classical Muslim political theory.