Karjoo-Ravary, Ali

Richard W. Bulliet Assistant Professor of Islamic History

Office Hours

Spring 2024: Tuesdays, 12:10 - 2:10 pm

 

Ali Karjoo-Ravary specializes in intellectual, social, and visual histories of premodern Islam in Arabic, Persian, and Turkic language sources. He is particularly interested in genres of historical writing, the role of cosmology in politics, Sufism, and multilingual poetry in the Islamic East (Mashriq). His book, currently titled Muhammad’s Song: Politics, Performance, and Cosmology in the Fourteenth Century, examines the formation of post-Mongol Islamic monarchy through the life and rule of Kadi Burhaneddin, a scholar turned poet-king in Anatolia whose writing and reception prefigured many of the hallmarks of later Islamic empires. Karjoo-Ravary’s research has been featured in a number of scholarly and popular venues, including bylines in Slate and AlJazeera English, as well as interviews with the BBC and CBC

 

Publications

“Adorning the King of Islam: Weaving and Unraveling History in Astarabadi’s Feasting and Fighting,” in MAVCOR Journal

“Illustrating the Forms: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 638/1240) Images in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya” in Visualizing Sufism: Studies on Graphic Representations in Sufi Literature (13th to 16th Century) (Brill)

“Mapping the Unseen: Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Maps in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya,” in Journal of Sufi Studies Vol. 11, Issue 2 (2022)

“From the Remainder of Adam’s Clay: Chapter Eight of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya” in Journal of Sufi Studies Vol. 10, Issue 1-2 (2021)

 

Education

Ph.D., Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania

M.A., Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania 

B.A., Religious Studies and Philosophy, minor in Linguistics, SUNY Stony Brook 

 

Experience

Fellowships:

  • Bard Graduate Center, Visiting Fellow, Fall 2020

  • Wolf Humanities Center, Graduate Research Fellow, 2016-2017

 

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