Dr. Mushegh Asatryan
Positions
Associate Professor
Contact information
Preferred method of communication
Background
Educational Background
Doctor of Philosophy , Yale University, 2012
M.A. , Central European University, 2003
Biography
I study the religious, social, and intellectual history of the pre-modern Muslim Middle East. I am very interested in the lives of medieval intellectuals as well as heretics and rebels. I've written about medieval Muslim constructions of heresy and orthodoxy, sectarianism, and the politics of religious polemics.
My first book, Controversies in Formative Shi’i Islam: The Ghulat Muslims and their Beliefs (I.B. Tauris, 2017), studies one of the earliest sectarian groups in Islamic history, examining their history in the crucible of early Islamic religious polemics, their literature, and their belief system.
My second book, coauthored with Dr. David Hollenberg, is a study and edition of the Manhaj al-ʿilm wa l-bayān wa-nuzhat al-samʿ wa l-ʿiyān (The Path of Knowledge and Clarification and the Bliss of Hearing and Seeing). The Manhaj is a Nusayri doctrinal treatise composed by ʿIṣmat al-Dawla during the fifth/eleventh century. This edition makes this important source available to scholars for the first time.
My third book, Debating the Freethinker, is a study and translation of Kitab al-Intisar , one of the earliest Islamic theological texts available to date, and a unique witness to the culture of debate and sectarian polemics in the Abbasid empire. The study explores the sectarian and intellectual milieu within which Khayyat wrote and the culture of debate in which he participated.
Currently, I am writing a book about the culture of debate in the Abbasid Empire (750-1100), and editing a collection entitled Early Islamic Sectarianism in Context.
In 2019 I was awarded (as co-director) the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, together with Dr. David Hollenberg of the University of Oregon (project director), for the project entitled Recovering Early Nusayri Shiism: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Manhaj al-‘ilm, in the amount of USD 132,266. The aim of the project is a critical edition, study, and translation of an 11th-century theological and cosmological text (ca. 400 manuscript pages). We plan to submit the critical edition and study of the text for publication in 2022, to be followed by the translation as a separate volume.
Awards
- Zahid Ali Fellowship, Institute of Ismaili Studies. 2020
Publications
- [Book] Controversies in Formative Shi'i Islam: The Ghulat Muslims and Their Beliefs. I. B. Tauris. (2017)
- [Book] The Nusayri Path of Knowledge A Study and Critical Edition of ʿIṣmat al-Dawla’s (thrived 11th century) Manhaj al-ʿilm wa l-bayān wa-nuzhat al-samʿ wa l-ʿiyān. David Hollenberg, Mushegh Asatryan . Brill. 440. (2024)
- [Book] Debating the Freethinker: A Study and Translation of Abu l-Husayn al-Khayyat’s (9th century) Kitab al-Intisar . Gorgias Press. (2025)
- [Book] Early Islamic Heresy in Context (edited volume). Gerlach Press. (2026)
- The Good, the Bad, and the Heretic in Early Islamic History. Mushegh Asatryan. Deconstructing Islamic Studies . (2020)
- An Agenda for the Study of Early Shi’a Cosmologies. Mushegh Asatryan. The Gnostic World. 321-327. (2018)
- Shiʿi Literature in the Late 9th Century Ishāq al-Ahmar al-Nakhaʿī (d. 286/899) and His Writings. Mushegh Asatryan. Light Upon Light. 164-181. (2019)
- Early Ismailis and Other Muslims: Polemics and Borrowing in Kitab al-Kashf. Mushegh Asatryan. Intellectual Interactions in the Islamic World. 359-389. (2019)
- Is Ghulat Religion Islamic Gnosticism? Religious Transmissions in Late Antiquity. Mushegh Asatryan, Dylan Burns. L'ésotérisme shi'ite, ses racines et ses prolongements . (2016)
- Shiite Underground Literature Between Iraq and Syria: The Book of Shadows and the History of Early Ghulat. Texts in Transit in the Eastern Mediterranean. (2016)
- How to Read Muslim Heresiology? An Ismaili Man-of-letters and his Classification of Muslim Sects. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam . (2022)
- The Heretic Talks Back: Feigning Orthodoxy in Saffar al-Qummi’s Basa'ir al-Darajat". History of Religions . History of Religions. (2022)
- Of Wine, Sex, and other Abominations Accusations of Libertinism in Early Islamic Iraq". Global Intellectual History . Global Intellectual History . (2023)
- An Early Shi'i Cosmology: Kitab al-ashbah wa l-azilla and its Milieu. Studia Islamica . (2015)
- Bankers and Politics: The Network of Shi'i Moneychangers in Eighth-Ninth Century Kufa and their Role in the Shi'i Community. Journal of Persianate Studies . (2014)
- The Emergence of Sunnism: When did the Sunnis Become a Sect?. Illusions of Orthodoxy: Islamic Politico-Religious and Legal Discourses (10th-11th century), (De Gruyter). (2026)
- Imami Hadith and the Abbasid Culture of Debate. Compiling a Tradition: The History and Development of the Early Imāmī Hadith Corpora. (2026)
- Prophecy After Muhammad: The View from Late Antiquity. Oxford Handbook of Shii Islam. (2026)
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