Josef (Yousef) Meri
I am a social historian specialised in the history of Muslim-Jewish-Christian Relations in past and present and medieval Islamic history and civilisation. My interests lie at the intersection of history and religion. In 2014 the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, Merrimack College, U.S.A. awarded me the Goldziher Prize in Jewish-Muslim Relations in recognition of my teaching and research.
Biography
Born in the United States Prof. Meri hails from a Jerusalemite family. Meri is presently Senior Associate (non-resident) at the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, Merrimack College, U.S.A. From 2014-2015 he was Visiting Professor in the Department of Studies of Islam in the Contemporary World at the University of Jordan. During the 2013-2014 academic year Meri served as 8th Allianz Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians-University of Munich. From 2011-2014 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies, Cambridge University. From June 2010-March 2013 he was Fellow of St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University and served as Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, Woolf Institute, Cambridge. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and Europe and has lived in Oxford, London, Cambridge, Munich, Amman, Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. From 2005-2010 he lived in Amman, where he oversaw a major Qur’anic exegesis project at the Jordanian Royal Court. He previously held visiting appointments at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London and the University of California at Berkeley.Prof. Meri is a specialist in the history of interfaith relations in the Middle East in past and present, Islamic history and civilization, and the history of religions with a focus on the Abrahamic faiths. Prof. Meri’s research interests include: Muslim-non-Muslim relations in the medieval and modern Middle East, medieval Islamic history, Pilgrimage and the veneration of holy places, persons and objects in Islam, Judaism and Christianity; History and Memory; Popular Religion; History of the Jews of Arab Lands.
His teaching interests include: Islamic History and Civilisation; the History of Religions; Pilgrimage in Islam and Judaism; Travel, Hajj and Ziyara; History of Sacred Places in the Middle East; the Jewish communities of the Islamic World; Bibliographic Methods in the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, Autobiographical Writings of Middle Eastern Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Prof. Meri recently published: (ed. and contributor) Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations (Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2016), (ed.) Jewish-Muslim Relations in Past and Present: A Kaleidoscopic View (Leiden: Brill, 2017), (ed.) Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols. (reissue with updated bibliographies and new preface) (Abingdon, Oxon. and New York: Routledge, 2017). His forthcoming publications include: History of Interfaith Relations in the Middle East and Mediterranean (University of Toronto Press, in progress), Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).
He is presently Subject Editor for Islamic Civilization for Routledge Medieval Encyclopedia Online (RMEO), forthcoming; He previously served as Founding Advisory Board Member (Islamic Studies), Oxford Bibliographies On-line (2008-2010), General Editor of Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia (2002-2005), Series Editor of the Great Tafsirs of the Holy Qur'an series (Fons Vitae Publishers, USA with Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Amman, Jordan)(2005-2010), Section Editor (Islam) of Wiley-Blackwell's Religion Compass (2005-2010) and Book Review Editor (Medieval Islamic and Jewish Studies), Speculum, published by the Medieval Academy of America (2007-2012) and Founding Editor of Intertwined Worlds (2010-2013), an e-platform dedicated to the academic study of Muslim-Jewish and Muslim-Jewish-Christian Relations.
Education
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D.Phil., Oriental Studies, Oxford University, Oxford, 1999
M.A., History, State University of New York Binghamton, 1995
B.A. (Hons.), Middle/Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 1992
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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*History of Interfaith Relations in the Middle East in Past and Present
* Islamic History & Civilization
*History of Religions
* Middle Eastern History
*Islamic Studies
* Jewish History
Personal Interests
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Reading, Food, Travel
Websites
Books
Articles
Routledge Featured Author Interview
Published: Aug 11, 2016 by Routledge Religion Blog
Authors: Routledge
Subjects:
Religion
Featured author interview with Josef Meri
News
Woolf Institute, Cambridge, U.K. News Item
By: Josef (Yousef) Meri
AUNCH OF MUSLIM-JEWISH RELATIONS HANDBOOK
22 August 2016
The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations has just been published. Edited by Professor Yousef Meri, a former Academic Director at the Woolf Institute, the publicationprovides an important multidisciplinary resource for the study of Muslim-Jewish relations.
Professor Joseph T. Kelley of Merrimack College commented on the book: "Josef Meri and thirty-five other scholars lift a reader’s imagination above the current quagmire to the richness and complexities of Muslim-Jewish Relations over 13 centuries. This text is a post-modern exercise confronting the absolutes of power rhetoric with multiple perspectives from an ancient narrative."
The Handbook is available in hardback and in an affordable electronic version via Amazon or directly from Routledge.
Routledge Featured Author Interview
By: Josef (Yousef) Meri
Subjects: History, Middle East Studies, Other, Philosophy and Religion, Religion
Routledge Featured Author interview with Prof. Dr. Josef Meri