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.

At masters level I supervise topics related to Islam, in majority Muslim countries as well as in the Nordic and European contexts. Topics include, for example, Islam in relation to public institutions, law, human rights, multiculturalism, democracy, and interfaith dialogue. This can involve both how Muslims integrate these issues into Islam, and how society works in relation to Muslims and Islam. A particularly interesting field is education and Islam, in the contexts of public schools and schools with Islamic profiles, as well as the emerging higher educations in Europe and Norway.

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.

2012, March 1-2, co-organising the IAHR Special Thematic Conference Religions, Science and Technology in Cultural Contexts: Dynamics of Change, NTNU, Trondheim.

2012, March 1-2, "Writing: The Religious and Political Implications of a Principle and a Technology for the Rise of Islam", Religions, Science and Technology in Cultural Contexts: Dynamics of Change, NTNU, Trondheim.

2012, March 26-28, "How God's Power Becomes People's Power: Faith and Pragmatism in the Muslim Brotherhood", BRISMES Annual Conferense Revolution and Revolt: Understanding the Causes of Change, LSE.

2012, May 4-5, "How can al-Tabari's History be used for a historical understanding of the origin of the Qur'an?" Middle East History and Theory (MEHAT) 2012, Middle East Studies Centre, The University of Chicago.