People
Ali Asani
Faculty Director
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Ali Asani is Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures. A specialist of Islam in South Asia, Professor Asani's research focuses on Shia and Sufi devotional traditions in the region. In addition, he studies popular or folk forms of Muslim devotional life, and Muslim communities in the West.
Nicholas Boylston
Faculty Advisory Committee Member
Nicholas Boylston is a scholar of classical Persian literature and Persianate Islam. His research focuses on themes of diversity and unity in the writings of Sufis, philosophers and litterateurs from the Persianate world. He is currently completing a book which brings to light the flourishing of perspectivist and pluralistic modes of thought during the final stage of the formative phase of classical Persian literature. He also studies the interactions between Twelver Shiʿism and Sufism in Persianate literary Quran commentaries.
Diana Eck
Affiliate Scholar
Diana Eck's academic work has a dual focus—India and America—and in both cases she is interested in the challenges of religious pluralism in a multi-religious society. Her work on India includes the books Banaras: City of Light and Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Her new book is India: Myth on Earth.
Mohsen Goudarzi
Faculty Advisory Committee Member
Mohsen Goudarzi is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the Harvard Divinity School faculty, having taught previously at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). He is an expert in Qur'anic Studies and his scholarship is leading to the reevaluation of some of the most fundamental assumptions previously held in the study of the Qur’an. Goudarzi is a scholar of religion who studies the Qur’an and early Islamic history using a variety of analytical approaches, including literary, linguistic, comparative, and historical perspectives.
Payam Mohseni
Dr. Payam Mohseni is the Director of the Project on Shi'ism and Global Affairs at Harvard Divinity School and manages Visions, Harvard's premier online publication on all matters pertaining to global Shi'ism. He is also a Lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a Lecturer on Islamic Studies at the Harvard Divinity School. At Harvard, he teaches on Iranian and Middle East politics as well as Islam and is a multiple recipient of the Harvard Excellence in Teaching award. Dr. Mohseni is an active term member at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York and also a Faculty Affiliate of the Program in Islamic Law at the Harvard Law School (HLS) and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at Harvard University.
Mohammad Sagha
Faculty Advisory Committee Member
Mohammad Sagha is a Lecturer in the Modern Middle East at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University where he teaches courses on Islam, history of the region (including Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan), and contemporary Middle East politics. His scholarship addresses sectarianism in Islam and the emergence and flexibility of sectarian identity throughout Islamic history from the early Islamic period to the contemporary Middle East.
