Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities
Professor of Islamic History and Visual Culture, Department of Religious Studies

Jamal J. Elias specializes in Islamic thought, literary and visual culture as well as history in Western and South Asia. His current research focuses on processes and understandings of religious community formation from the medieval to the modern world, as demonstrated in historical and literary writing as well as in visual and material culture. His most recent book, After Rumi: Language, Kinship and the Making of a Religious Community, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. A book edited by him entitled Beyond the Rose and the Nightingale: What Makes Islamic Literature Islamic? is forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press. He is the author of Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (2018); Aisha's Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (2012); On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (2011); This is Islam: From Muhammad and the Community of Believers to Islam in the Global Community (2011); Islam (1999);The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani (1995); the coauthor of Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (2001); the editor and translator of Death Before Dying: Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu (1998); the editor of Key Themes for the Study of Islam (2010); the coeditor of Light Upon Light: A Festschrift presented to Gerhard Böwering by His Students (2019); and the author of numerous articles. His writings have been translated into at least nine languages.