Teaching and Advising

I teach undergraduate and graduate classes in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department and the Committee on the Study of Religion. My classes include The Modern Middle East Real and Imagined, an Introduction (MODMDEST100/200),  Reading al-Manar in the Interwar Period (MODMDEST315), Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East (GENED1123), Islamic Institutions in the Middle East and Beyond: Modern Transformations and Debates (ISLAMCIV 218/RELIGION 2810), Colonization and Decolonization in the Maghrib and Egypt (MODMDEST110/210).

I advise PhD students in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department and the Committee on the Study of Religion. PhD dissertations I have advised at the University of Chicago and Harvard University include:

Noah Salomon, In the shadow of salvation: Sufis, Salafis and the Project of Late Islamism in Contemporary Sudan, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, 2010

Ayse Polat, Subject to Approval: Sanction and Censure in Ottoman Istanbul (1889-1923), The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, 2015

Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Pedagogies of Transformation: Teaching and Learning Islam in Greater Paris, The Committee on the Study of Religion Harvard University, 2017

Deirdre DeBruyn-Rubio, Cultivating Religious Citizens: The Politics of Muslim Participation in Interfaith Organizations in France and the United States, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2019

Lulie El-Ashry, Not Just Friday Muslims: A European Sufi Order and the Search for Spiritual Realization and Public Recognition in the Modern World, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2020

Mary Elston, Reviving Turāth: Islamic Education in Modern Egypt, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2020 [2020 Alwaleed Bin Talal  Doctoral Dissertation Prize]

Youssef Ben Ismail, Sovereignty across Empires: France, the Ottoman Empire, and the Imperial Struggle over Tunis (ca. 1830–1920), Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University 2021

Ari Schriber, The End of Sharia? The Structural and Epistemological Evolution of the Shariʿa Judge in Colonial-Era Morocco, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2021 [2022 Alwaleed Bin Talal Honorable Mention]

Laura Thompson, Who Speaks for the Sacred?: The Politics of Blasphemy in Tunisia from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2022

Armaan Siddiqi, A Modern Moroccan ʿālim: Shaykh Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Kattānī’s Life, Works, and World (1858-1927), Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2023  [2024 Alwaleed Bin Talal  Doctoral Dissertation Prize]

Lucy Ballard, Dreams of D-Mecca: Racial Crossings and Islamic Renewal in the Two Detroits, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2024.

I have also participated in dissertation committees at the University of Chicago, SciencesPo Paris, Princeton University, and Harvard University. They include:

Lamiss Azab, Dire l’islam en banlieue. De l’offre islamique à l’expérience religieuse et aux présentations de soi. Terrains croisés (2001-2006), Institut d'Etudes Politiques (SciencesPo), 2007

Metin Yuksel, Dengbêj, Mullah, intelligentsia: The survival and revival of the Kurdish-Kurmanji language in the Middle East, 1925–1960, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago, 2011

Anthony Banout, Islamic modernism and the possibility of democratic religious freedom, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, 2012

Rajarshi Ghose, Politics for faith: Karamat Ali Jaunpuri and Islamic revivalist movements in British India circa 1800–73, The University of Chicago, 2012

Kimberly Wortmann, Omani Religious Networs in Contemporary Tanzania, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2018

Guillaume Wadia, A Constellation of Outposts: French Intelligence Services and the Administration of the French Protectorate of Morocco, 1912-1937, Department of History, Harvard University, 2018

Jawad Qureshi, Sunni Tradition in the Age of Renewal and Reform: Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī (1929-2013) and His Interlocutors, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, 2019

Caitlyn Olson, Creed, Belief, and the Common Folk: Disputes in the Early Modern Maghrib (9th/15th-11th/17th c.), Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2020

Julian Weideman, Islamic Reform on the Margins of Colonialism: Political Economy, Social History, and Intellectual Life at the Zaytuna Mosque University in 20th century North Africa, Department of History, Princeton University, 2021

Mohamed Abdelsalam, The Status of Islam in the Egyptian Legal System- Comparative Analysis of the Supreme Constitutional Court and Council of State Decisions regarding Islamic Shari‘ah, Ecole de droit of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (SciencesPo), 2022

Janan Delgado, 2022, The Ties that Bind, Child Custody in Andalusi Mālikism, 3rd/9th-6th-12th c, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2022 [Winner of the 2022 Alwaleed Bin Talal Doctoral Dissertation Prize]

Latifeh Aavani, Sharī ʿa and the Dilemma of Modern Legislation: The Shīʿī Jurists’ Reception of Qānūn in the late-19th and early-20th Centuries, The Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 2023