Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. Her research focuses on the continued life of Islamic philosophy as it was absorbed and transformed in Islamic theology and mysticism through both Arabic and Persian textual traditions. She earned her BA from Yale University in 2010, where she majored in Religious Studies, and her Master’s of Arts in Religion (MAR) from Yale Divinity School in 2012 with a concentration in Philosophy of Religion. In 2018, she completed her doctorate in Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her published work includes articles in such journals as Oriens, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, and the Journal of Persianate Studies, as well as book chapters in the edited volumes Global Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Equinox, 2024), Mysticism and Ethics in Islam (American University of Beirut Press, 2021) and Women's Contemporary Readings of Medieval Arabic Thought (Springer, 2022). Her current book project, for which she was awarded an NEH Summer Stipend in 2022, addresses the epistemologies developed by the eminent 12th-century Muslim theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, formed by his critical engagement with Greek and Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Hermeticism, and occult science.
Job title:
Assistant Professor of Islamic Thought
Bio/CV:
Role:
