Contributors
Ali Aghaei
is Research Associate at the Institute of Islamic Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin, where he is advancing his research on “Prophetic Tradition and Hadith in the Digital Space” as part of the project “Islam and Digitality: Mediality, Materiality, Hermeneutics” (https://islamdigitality.com). He is the director of the project “Irankoran,” funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany) and hosted at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2017–2020), which culminated in the online publication Irankoran: Digital Catalogue and Edition of Qurʾān Manuscripts in Collections of Iran (http://irankoran.ir). Among his recent publications are “Saʿīd Ḥawwā,” in Qur’ānic Hermeneutics in the 19th and 20th Century, Volume 4: Qur’ānic Hermeneutics in the 19th and 20th Century, ed. Georges Tamer (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2024), 395–420, and “The Hermeneutics of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā: The Interpretation of akhbār al-āḥād in Kitāb al-Amālī,” in Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change, ed. Joel Blecher and Stefanie Brinkmann (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023), 50–78.
Christian Blumenthal
is Professor of New Testament at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn. His current research interests include theological ambiguities, constructions of asymmetrical dependencies in Mark, Philippians, Jude and 2 Peter (with regard to these two Catholic letters currently in the context of a commentary project in the series: Handbuch zum Neuen Testament). His most recent publications are Crisis management in Mark. Studies on the ambiguous basic structure of his theology and his conception of space. SBS 255 (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2023); The image of Christ in the Philippians hymn reflected in old translations. WUNT 517 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024); Heresy in New Testament times? The New Testament pleads for theological diversity – individual writings can also be different …, WUB 29 (2024): 10–13.
Suleyman Dost
is Assistant Professor of Late Antiquity and Early Islam at the University of Toronto. He works primarily on inscriptions and other documentary sources from late antique Arabia and Ethiopia. His research also covers the historical context in which the Qur’an emerged as well as the history of its textual transmission. Recent publications include “The Meaning of ibtahala in the Qurʾān: A Reassessment,” Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 8, no. 1 (2023): 157–171; “Once again on Noah’s lost son in the Qur’ān: the Enochic connection,” Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques 76, no. 2 (2022), 371–388; “Pilgrimage in Pre-Islamic Arabia: Continuity and Rupture from Epigraphic Texts to the Qur’an,” Millenium 20, no. 1 (2023): 15–32.
Charlotte E. Fonrobert
is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Her interests include gender in Jewish culture, the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, the discourses of orthodoxy versus heresy, the connection between religion and space and rabbinic conceptions of Judaism with respect to Greco-Roman culture. Recent publications include: Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2000), which won the Salo Baron Prize for a best first book in Jewish Studies of that year and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish Scholarship. She also co-edited The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2007), together with Martin Jaffee (University of Washington).
Zishan Ghaffar
is a professor of Qur’anic exegesis and the chairman of the Center for Comparative Theology and Cultural Studies at Paderborn University. His most recent publications include the book The Qur’an in its Religious and World Historical Context – Eschatology and Apocalyptic in the Middle Meccan Surahs (Leiden: Ferdinand Schöningh/Brill, 2020), as well as two studies on “Counterfactual Intertextuality in the Qur’an and the Exegetical Tradition of Syrian Christianity,” Der Islam 98, no.2 (2021): 313–358 and “The Many Faces of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ”, Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 9, no.1 (2024): 19–45.
Dirk Hartwig
is a research associate at the Corpus Coranicum project, while also serving as a research associate at the Center for Islamic Theology at WWU Münster. Recent publications include Neuwirth and Hartwig, Der Koran Bd. 2/2: Spätmittelmekkanische Suren: Von Mekka nach Jerusalem – Der spirituelle Weg der Gemeinde heraus aus säkularer Indifferenz und apokalyptischem Pessimismus (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2021); Neuwirth, The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage. Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press, 2019) (German: 2010); The Qur’an. Text and Commentary, vol 1: Early Meccan Surahs: Poetic Prophecy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022) (German: 2011); The Qur’an. Text and Commentary, vol. 2/1: Early Middle Meccan Surahs: The New Elect (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024) (German: 2017).
Catherine Hezser
is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on the social history, literature, and culture of Jews in Roman-Byzantine Palestine. Her most recent book publications are Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi (London: Bloomsbury, 2025); The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity (ed., London and New York: Routledge, 2024); Jewish Monotheism and Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Saqib Hussain
is Assistant Professor in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, LA, and Associate Editor for both the Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association and Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Online. His most recent publications include “Adam and the Names”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Published online 2024): 1–26; “Q 63 (Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn): A Text-Critical and Structural Analysis”, in Unlocking the Medinan Qur’an, ed. Nicolai Sinai (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2022); “The Bitter Lot of the Rebellious Wife: Hierarchy, Obedience, and Punishment in Q. 4:34”, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 23, no. 2 (2021): 66–111.
Elisa Klapheck
is Professor of Jewish Studies at Paderborn University and rabbi in Frankfurt am Main. Areas of research: Jewish Studies, Political Philosohy. Recent publications include: MACHLOKET / STREITSCHRIFTEN (Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2015–); „Dina de-Malchuta Dina: Oder: Gott braucht den säkularen Rechtsstaat,“ in Staat und Religion: Aspekte einer sensiblen Verhältnisbestimmung, ed. R. Althaus and J. Schmidt (Freiburg: Herder, 2019), 40–64; „Jüdischer Pluralismus in der säkularen Gesellschaft,“ in Bildung in der postsäkularen Gesellschaft, ed. Stefan Müller and Wolfgang Sander (Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa 2018), 47–60; „Das religiös-säkulare Spannungsfeld des Judentums“, in Säkulares Judentum aus religiöser Quelle, ed. Elisa Klapheck (Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich 2015), 9–47; Margarete Susman und ihr jüdischer Beitrag zur politischen Philosophie (Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich 2014).
Angelika Neuwirth
is professor emerita of Arabic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2007, she has been the director of the Corpus Coranicum project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities; she currently teaches at The Theological Study Year, Dormitio Abbay, Jerusalem.
Nora Schmidt
is a vicar in the Protestant Church in Berlin. Until 2023, she was head of the DFG project “Die Umschrift der Weisheit” and a research assistant at the Chair of Old Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg. Her recent publications include the monograph: Streitbare Helden. New Perspectives on the Male Figures of the Book of Judges, Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible, forthcoming. The anthology together with Manfred Oeming: Hermeneutik(en) der Weisheit von der hebräischen Bibel bis in die islamische Zeit. Religionshistorische Beiträge zum Wandel von Weisheit und ihr Potenzial für praktisch-theologische Diskurse der Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2025). And the anthology together with Jutta Eming and Bettina Bildhauer: Die ‘Sieben weisen Meister’ als globale Erzähltradition / The Seven Sages of Rome as global narrative Tradition, Das Mittelalter 28/1 (Heidelberg University Publishing 2023).
Klaus von Stosch
is Schlegel-Professor of Systematic Theology at Bonn University. Areas of research: comparative theology, faith and reason, problem of evil, Christian theology responsive to Islam, esp. Christology, theology of the Trinity. Recent publications include: Einführung in die Komparative Theologie (Paderborn: utb 2021); together with Muna Tatari: Prophetin – Jungfrau – Mutter. Maria im Koran (Freiburg: Herder 2021) (English translation 2021 with Gingko); together with Francis X. Clooney (eds.), How to do Comparative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press 2018).
Fatima Tofighi
is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Religions and Denominations (Qom, Iran). She is also a research fellow at the International Center for Comparative Theology and Social Issues, University of Bonn (Germany). She has published on the reception history of the scriptures, methods, and approaches in the study of religions, gendered readings of religious texts, among other things. Her few recent works include Paul’s Letters and the Construction of the European Self (London et. al: Bloomsbury, 2017) and Modern Methods in the Study of the Scriptures (in Farsi, Kargadan, 2022).
Holger Zellentin
is Professor for Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at Tübingen University. He is a historian of religion specializing in Late Antiquity, with a particular interest in Talmudic and Qur’anic studies. His approach combines literary, philological, and historical methods to compare and contrast Jewish, Christian, and early Islamic cultural traditions. Recent publications include Law Beyond Israel. From the Bible to the Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) and The Qur’an’s Reformation of Judaism and Christianity: Return to the Origins (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019).