Devin J. StewartSamuel Candler Dobbs ProfessorDepartmental Chair

 Devin J. Stewart received a B.A. magna cum laude in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 1984 and wrote an honors thesis on the scholars of Safavid Iran, 1576–1629. He received a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, and his dissertation earned the Malcolm Kerr Award for the best dissertation in Middle Eastern Studies, Humanities Division. He has taught in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University since 1990, and he is currently chair of the Department and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies. He has also served as president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (2018–2020). His research interests include Qur’anic studies, Shiite Islam, Islamic law and legal theory, medieval Islamic education, Islamic biographical and autobiographical literature, medieval Arabic literature, Arabic dialects, and the Fihrist [The Catalogue] of Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 990 CE).

Education/Degrees

• Ph.D., Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Pennsylvania
• B.A., Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

Teaching/Research Areas

• Shiite Islam
• Qur’anic Studies
• Biography and Autobiography
• Moriscos
• Safavid Iran
• Pre-modern Arabic Literature
• Arabic Dialects

Books Published

• Disagreements of the Jurists: A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory. New York: New York University Press, 2015.
• Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition. Dwight F. Reynolds.  University of California Press, 2001.  Co-authored text (pp. 1-103) and translated the autobiography of Yusuf al-Bahrani (d. 1772 C.E.) (pp. 216-23).
• Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City:  Utah University Press, 1998.

Edited Works

• Female Religious Authority in Shi’i Islam. Ed. Mirjam Künkler and Devin J. Stewart. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.  
• Vitality and Dynamism: Interstitial Dialogues of Language, Politics, and Religion in Morocco’s Literary Tradition. Ed. Kirstin Ruth Bratt, Youness M. Elbousty, and Devin J. Stewart. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2014. 
• Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought.  Associate Editors Patricia Crone, Wadad al-Qadi, Muhammad Qasim Zaman and Devin Stewart, Chief Editor Gerhard Böwering.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 
• At the Nexus of Traditions in Safavid Iran: The Career and Thought of Shaykh Baha' al-Din Al-Amili.  Preface, Translations, and Notes by Devin J. Stewart. Edited by Muhammad Kazim Rahmati.  Qum, Iran: Academy of Islamic Sciences and Culture, 2009. 
• Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, II: 1350-1850.  Ed. Joseph E. Lowry and Devin J. Stewart.  Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009. 
• Arabic Literature before al-Muwaylihi.  Ed. Devin J. Stewart and Shawkat M. Toorawa.  Special issue of Middle Eastern Literatures, 11.2 (2008). 
• Law and Education in Medieval Islam.  Studies in Memory of Professor George Makdisi.  Ed. Joseph Lowry, Devin Stewart, and Shawkat Toorawa.  E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, 2004.