Mohammad Sagha

Research Interests: History of sectarianism in Islam, early Islamic empire, social network theory, Arab-Persian transnational connections, history of kinship and genealogy in Islam

Mohammad Sagha is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Thought and History at the Harvard Divinity School's Project on Shi'ism and Global Affairs. His research focuses on the history of sectarianism, Persian-Arab relations, family and empire, and political institutions in Islam from the early period through to the modern Middle East. Previously, he was a Lecturer in the Modern Middle East at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University where he taught courses on Islam, history of the region (including Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan), and contemporary Middle East politics. He was also a Faculty Advisory Committee Member and Research Director on Islamic History and Identity at the Project on Shi'ism and Global Affairs at HDS.

Dr. Sagha received his PhD in Islamic History and Civilization from the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He was a Postdoctoral Division of Humanities Teaching Fellow and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (CSRPC) at the University of Chicago, and also a Co-Director of the Shiʿi Studies Group. He received an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago where he wrote his thesis on the sociological networks of the emerging Twelver Shiʿi community at the time of the occultation of the Twelfth Imam. Dr. Sagha was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at Harvard University, working under the supervision of Professor Roy Mottahedeh on early Islamic dynastic military politics, as well as an editor for SHARIAsource at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. He is fluent in Persian with advanced command of Arabic and reading knowledge of French and German. His work has been supported by awards and fellowships from the University of Chicago, the Foreign Language Acquisition Fellowship (FLAS), the Islamic Scholarship Foundation, and the Hub Foundation.