Mohamed A. Moustafa

My research interests come at the intersection of Quranic studies, Islamic intellectual history, and Arabic literature during the post-classical period. I am writing my dissertation on al-Qadi Nasir al-Din al-Baydawi and his Quran commentary “Anwar al-tanzil wa asrar al-ta’wil,” the most popular and the most glossed work of tafsir during the Mamluk and Ottoman times. Al-Baydawi flourished under the Ilkhanids, following the Mongol invasion of Persia, Syria and Iraq, and was active in Shiraz and Tabriz. He produced important works on Islamic law, legal theory, systematic theology that generated a huge commentary tradition, and were a staple for madrasa curricula. My project is quite stimulating and the sources I use shed new light on the life and work of al-Baydawi. 

I published my first peer-reviewed article in the NAZARİYAT Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences. I also published contributions to Leiden’s series Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, and book reviews. My publications can be accessed at https://arizona.academia.edu/MohamedAMoustafa.

An MA-Fulbright scholar, I also received a five-year PhD scholarship from MENAS, University of Arizona. In July 2019, I was awarded the National Humanities Center (NHC) Internship at San Diego State University. I participated in the Geneva University’s conference “Body’s Mind and the Mind's Body: Bodily States and Cognition in the Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophical and Medical Traditions” (April 2016). I also participated in academic workshops at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies in Cairo, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute & Utrecht University events in Cairo, the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts, ALECSO, and the U.S. Department of State/Fulbright in Washington DC.

I taught Islamic studies in English at the School of Language and Translation, Al-Azhar University, for seven years and have been active in translation from Arabic into English and vice versa since 2006. While pursuing my PhD at MENAS, I assist with teaching courses offered by the department, such as the Religion of Islam, Islamic Civilization, History of the Middle East, etc. I also teach Arabic at intermediate and advanced levels at the same department.