Religious Studies Department

Faculty Directory

Tamara Sonn

William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Humanities

  • Office: Wren Building 309
  • Email:
  • Office Phone: +1 757 221 2476
Areas of Specialization

Islamic intellectual history and contemporary issues in Islam

Background

Editor-in-Chief of Religion Compass

http://www.blackwell-compass.com/home_religion_compass

 

Her books include Interpreting Islam:  Bandali Jawzi's Islamic Intellectual History (Oxford, 1996); Islam and the Question of Minorities (Scholars Press, 1996); Comparing Religions through Law:  Judaism and Islam (with J. Neusner; Routledge 1999); Judaism and Islam in Practice (with J. Neusner and J. Brockopp; Routledge 1999); and Between Qur'an and Crown:  The Challenge of Political Legitimacy in the Arab World (Westview, 1990).  She is currently working on the second edition of her 2004 Brief History of Islam (Blackwell).  
 
She has contributed chapters and articles to numerous books and journals, as well as Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, the Encyclopedia of Women and Religion, and Colliers Encyclopedia.   She was senior editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003), and associate editor of Oxford's encyclopedia The Islamic World Past and Present (2004).  She is currently an editor of Oxford's forthcoming Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and the World of Islam Electronic Resource Center.  
 
Past-president of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, she is a member of the academic advisory council for the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, a member of the board of directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy; and a member of the editorial boards Muslim World, American Journal for Islamic Social Science, and several other journals.  
 
She has lectured in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and has received grants from the United States Institute of Peace, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the U.S. Department of State, among others.  She serves as senior advisor for a Rockefeller Brothers Foundation-funded study of Islam in Asia for the National Bureau of Asian Research.