Jamal
Elias
University of Pennsylvania
Ruth Meltzer Fellowship; Rose and Henry Zifkin Teaching Fellowship
Research Topic
The Christian and the Jew as Literary Types in Muslim Writing from the Ilkhanid and Seljuk Periods
Bio
Jamal Elias is Class of 1965 Term Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include Islamic mystical thought and metaphysics; religion and material culture; popular culture in South Asia and Turkey; Arabic and Persian scholarly literature; and visual studies. He authored Key Themes for the Study of Islam (2010); This Is Islam: From Muhammad and the Community of Believers to Islam in the Global Community (2011); and On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (2011). In the spring, Elias will explore the early phase of the Mevlevi Sufi order in thirteenth-century Anatolia.
