Teaching

I am currently responsible for two courses at the department:

RVI1030: Midtøstens religioner (Introduction to the Middle East religions Judaism, Islam and the Oriental Christian churches)

RVI2115: Religion, Politics and Science in Global Society (a course also given as part of NTNU's International MA in Globalisation)

In addition I teach epistemology, hermeneutics and 'historical-critical' method on our MA in Religious studies.

Research and publications

I have my doctoral degree in History of Religions from Uppsala University, on the dissertation "The True New Testament: Sealing the Heart's Covenant in al-Tabari's Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk (2001).

My research is focused on Islam, in medieval, modern and contemporary contexts, and ways in which Islamic knowledge is produced – both ‘Islamic' knowledge as produced by Muslims, and ‘knowledge about Islam' as produced also by non-Muslims. Of special interest is the relationship between religious ideas and practices, and individuals' positions within social institutions. To put it simply, I analyse individuals' views of what Islam implies as expressions of their views of social institutions. Such views can be both normative and descriptive; in either case the objective is to improve the functions of institutions to better serve the common good. A publication treating applying this to non-Muslims' knowledge about Islam is:

"The Power of Subject: Weber, Foucault and Islam", Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 16:2 (2007), pp. 97–136.

In medieval contexts I have explored this problem area in relation to writings by the famous historian, theologian, jurist and Quran interpreter Muhammad b. Jarir b. Yazid al-Tabari (838–923), as well in relation to the Quran itself. Main publications are:

"Discourse and Historical Analysis: The Case of al-Tabari's History of the Messengers and the Kings", Journal of Islamic Studies16:3 (2005), pp. 287–331.

„Bund und Land in muslimischer Rezeption. Biblische Kategorien in Tabaris Geschichtswerk", Judaica. Beiträge zum Verstehen des Judentums, 62:4 (2006), pp. 289–308.

"‘The Persuasive Proof': Aristotle's Politics and Rhetoric in the Qur'ân and al-Tabarî's Exegesis," Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam, 34 (2008), pp. 363–420.

Al-Tabarî, in the series Makers of Islamic Civilization, editor Farhad A. Nizami. Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford University Press (2009).

"Through the Lens of Modern Hermeneutics: Authorial Intention in al-Tabari's and al-Ghazali's Interpretations of Q. 24:35", Journal of Qur'anic Studies 11.2 (2009), pp. 20–48.

"‘It's the economy, stupid!' Al-Tabari's analysis of the free rider problem in the Abbasid caliphate', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54 (2011), pp. 203–38.

"Introduction: ‘Materialist' Approaches to Islamic History", introduction to special issue Challenging Culturalism; ‘Materialist' Approaches to Islamic History,guest editor Ulrika Mårtensson, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54 (2011), pp. 117–31.

In modern and contemporary contexts, I have selected Hasan al-Banna's concept of ‘the Quran is our constitution', exploring its implications for his view of the state and the law, as compared to what I argue is the Quranic concept of ‘constitution'. This comparison is explored in terms of the concept ‘fundamentalism' in the chapter:

"The Quran, the Constitution, ‘the Natural': Divisive Concepts within Scholarly Islam", in Ulrika Mårtensson, Jennifer Bailey, Priscilla Ringrose, Asbjørn Dyrendal et.al. (eds.) Fundamentalism in the Modern World. Volume 1: Fundamentalism, Politics and History: The State, Globalization and Political Ideologies, London: I.B. Tauris (2011), pp. 27–52. This volume is the first in a set of two, the second one being Fundamentalism in the Modern World. Volume 2: Fundamentalism and Communication: Culture, Media and the Public Sphere.

Further work on the Muslim Brotherhood's current evolution towards a concept of ‘Islamic civil state' and of equal civil rights within an ‘all-encompassing Islamic order' is in progress.

Also in the contemporary context, I have begun a new research track focusing on the development of Islam in the institutional setting of the Nordic welfare states and with reference to sociological debates about secularization, de-secularization and public religion on the one hand, and policies of social inclusion and citizenship on the other. The guest-edited volume Public Islam and the Nordic Welfare State: Changing Realities? is forthcoming in 2012 with the journal Studies in Contemporary Islam. In it I contribute with two introductory chapters, and the co-authored (with Eli-Anne Vongraven Eriksen) chapter ‘Muslim Society Trondheim: A Local History'. The study explores how an Islamic organisation develops in relation to the church and a range of public institutions.

As education is one of the most important public institutions, it has become a part of my work in Scandinavian contexts. At this stage I have two publications in this field:

"Liberala förväntningar på islamutbildning" ("Liberal expectations on Education in Islam"), chapter in Jenny Berglund, Göran Larsson and Ulf P. Lundgren (eds.), Att söka kunskap – islamisk utbildning och pedagogik i historia och nutid (In Search of Knowledge – Islamic education and pedagogic in historical and contemporary contexts), Stockholm: Liber (2010), pp. 63–100.

Review of Swedish Public State Investigation SOU 2009:52: Staten och imamerna: religion, integration, autonomi (The State and the Imams: Religion, Integration, Autonomy), DAVO (2010), Vol. 32, pp. 109–11.

I have also been commissioned to contribute an article to Religion Compass on "Challenges for Islam education in Scandinavia".

Conference and seminar presentations

2003, August 3–13: "Towards a Hermeneutics of Reform: Concepts and Social Action in Weberian Islamic Studies and al-Tabarî's Exegesis". Presentation at the international Summer Academy "The Hermeneutics of Border: Canon and Community in Judaism, Christianity and Islam", the Wissenschaftkolleg zu Berlin.

2004, November 17: Presentation "Reversing the Orientalist Dialectics: Idolatry, Imitation and Ignorance as (Pre)Modern Islamic Constructions of Tradition", Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

2005, May 2: Presentation "Hermeneutics in Practice: Max Weber, New Orientalism, and the Making of Islamic Fundamentalism", Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

2005, August 4–6: "Culture: A Problematic Concept", paper presented at the conference Navigating Globalization: Stability, Fluidity and Friction, NTNU, Trondheim,

2006, December 14–16: "Exegesis and Destiny: Three Cases of ‘Fundamentalism'", paper presented at the conference Global Communication of Fundamentalist Knowledge, NTNU, Trondheim.

2007, January 21: Presentation "The Prophet Muhammad: ‘Law-giver' of the Islamic City State", seminar at the Centre for Middle East Studies, University of Bergen.

2007, April 19–22: "Drawing one Border, Crossing Another: Concepts of Authenticity and Social Action in Tariq Ramadan's Construction of a Trans-national Muslim Community", paper presented at the conference Religion on the Borders: New Challenges in the Academic Study of Religion, Södertörn University College, Stockholm. 

2007, July 1-4: "Esotericism and Pan-Islam: From al-Afghani to Tariq Ramadan", paper presented at the conference Islamic Fundamentalism and Sufism: Continuities and Confrontations through Modernity and Globalization, Haifa University.

2007, November 17-21: "‘The Promised Land': The Material and Analytical Significance of the Sawâd in al-Tabari's History of the Messengers and the Kings", Middle East Studies Association congress 2007, Montreal.

2008, March 25-29: "‘Natural religion': The Nationalist Foundation of Pan-Islamic Salafi Fundamentalism", paper presented at International Studies Association congress 2008, San Francisco.

2008, November 23-26: "Rule of Law and Centralised Tax System: Al-Tabarî's Remedy for the Abbasid State", paper presented at Middle East Studies Association congress 2008, Washington, DC. Co-organiser (with Steve Tamari, Southern Illinois University) of the panel Challenging Culturalism: ‘Materialist' Approaches to Islamic History. Panelists: Elton Daniel (University of Hawaii), Ahmad Dallal (Georgetown University), Hoda el-Saadi (AUC), Michele Campopiano (University of Utrecht), Steve Tamari, Ulrika Martensson.

2008, May 25-26: "Author and Authority: A Comparison of al-Tabarî's, al-Ghazzâlî's and Gadamer's Hermeneutics". Paper and book chapter in-progress presented at the seminar Texts and Genres of the Qur'ân: Micro-Level Analyses.

2009, September 4-6: "Salman Rushdie and the Myth of the Satanic Signs: Temptations of Power in the Age of Globalisation". Paper presented at the conference Islamic Resurgence in the Age of Globalization: Myth, Memory, Emotion. Co-organised by Itzchak Weismann/Haifa University, Ulrika Mårtensson/NTNU and Mark Sedgwick/Århus University.

2009, September 16-19: "Aristotle, the Quran, and the Prophet's Scribes: An Arab Christian connection?" Paper presented at the Sixth Woodbrooke-Mingana Symposium on Arab Christianity and Islam, Birmingham University.

2009, October 1-2: "Translating the Quran into Habermasian language: Universalist challenges for education in Islam". Paper presented at The Fourth Conference of the History of Education (Fjärde Utbildningshistoriska Konferensen), Uppsala University.  

2010, May 14-15: "‘It's the economy, stupid': al-Tabari's analysis of the free rider problem in the Abbasid caliphate". Paper presented at the Middle East History and Theory (MEHAT 2010) annual conference, The University of Chicago.

2010, October 27-28: "Public Islam and the Nordic Welfare State". Seminar organised by NTNU/Centre for Islamic Studies, Youngstown State University.

2011, June 28-29: "Muslim Society Trondheim: The Dialectics of Islamic doctrine, integration policy and institutional practices". Paper presented at CRONEM/VISOR conference, University of Surrey.

2011, June 30-July 1: "Dialectics between rational and irrational discourse: Inclusion and exclusion of Muslims in the Norwegian public sphere". Paper presented at the workshop Regulation of Speech and Multicultural Societies, University of Amsterdam.

2011, July 4-7: "What Law, which Lawgiver? Law and Prophethood in al-Tabari's History and Commentary". Paper presented at special panel Quran and Islamic Tradition in Comparative Perspective, at International Society of Biblical Literature Annual Convention, Kings's College, London.

2011, October 1-5: "Al-Tabari's Methodology: A Classical ‘Historical-Critical' Approach to the Qur'an?" Paper presented at the conference Classical Islamic Knowledge and Education: Historical Foundations and Contemporary Impacts, organised by Göttingen University and al-Azhar University.

2011, November 10-12: "The Qur'an as sign-enthymeme: legal-political implications" Paper presented at the conference The Qur'an: Text, Society, Culture, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.