My research focuses on the history of trans-denominational intellectual thought in the pre-modern Islamicate world. As a matter of methodological preference and historiographical priority, my studies cut across established disciplinary boundaries and transgress real or imaginary borders between religious communities and schools of thought.
In the framework of the MAJLIS research project, I continue my long-standing work on manuscripts from the Firkovitch Collections at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. A catalogue of the Arabsko-Yevreski subsection of the Second Firkovitch Collection will provide detailed palaeographical and codicological descriptions of roughly four hundred manuscripts dating to the late 10th and 11th centuries. The manuscripts of this subcollection, which are either written in Arabic script (including Hebrew in Arabic script) or in bi-alphabetical Arabic/Hebrew script, yield a hoard of valuable information about the functions and activities of the Qaraite dār al-ʿilm in Jerusalem. As material objects, they embody a dense network of relationships with other human and nonhuman agents. A second project investigates the institutional structure and history of the dār al-ʿilm through the life and œuvre of Yeshuʿah ben Yehudah (Abū l-Faraǧ Furqān b. Asad). His extensive literary output and teaching activities together with his wide-ranging networks of social and intellectual connections provide another access point to explore the institutional and intellectual profile of the dār al-ʿilm and its embeddedness in the larger sociocultural context. A third project entitled “Bibliotheca Polyglotta Karaitica” investigates the transmission, transformation, and translation of knowledge produced at the Jerusalemite dār al-ʿilm to other geographical and linguistic areas. It will shed new light on the character, purpose, and intended use of Byzantine Hebrew translations and offer a series of trilingual (Arabic–Hebrew–Greek) sample editions together with a trilingual lexicographical database. Beyond that, I am involved in several collaborative projects on Qaraite and Samaritan legal and exegetical texts in Arabic as well as studies in Muʿtazilī kalām and uṣūl al-fiqh.
g.schwarb@lmu.de
lmu-munich.academia.edu/GregorSchwarb
orcid.org/0000-0002-9090-1878
Areas of Interest
Intellectual history of the Islamicate world; Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Kalām in Arabic; Muʿtazila; traditions of falsafa in (Judeo-)Arabic and Hebrew; Maimonides; Qaraite Judaism; Genizah studies; Firkovitch Collections; Arabic and Hebrew palaeography and codicology; Jewish and Samaritan Bible translations; scriptural exegesis and hermeneutics in Arabic; Copto-Arabic literature of the 13th and 14th centuries; interreligious polemics.
Historical Periods of Interest
9th through 15th centuries CE
Positions
2021
Senior Research Associate in Judaic Studies, ERC-Project “MAJLIS: The Transformation of Jewish Literature in Arabic in the Islamicate World”, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Munich
2020 – 2021
Fellow, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
2015 – 2021
Editor-in-Chief, Index Islamicus, and Visiting Scholar, School of Oriental African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK
2014
Lecturer for the MA program Intellectual Encounters of the Islamicate World, Freie Universität Berlin
2009 – 2013
Senior Research Associate, Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, Freie Universität Berlin
2008 – 2009
Academic Director, Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations (CMJR), Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, Cambridge, UK
2004 – 2008
Research Associate, “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project”, Freie Universität Berlin
Education
2023
Dr. phil. in Islamic Studies (Freie Universität Berlin)
2000
Research Fellowship, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and at Cambridge University Library, UK, supported by the Fondation Jean Nordmann (Fribourg, Switzerland)
1998 – 1999
Stage annuel de perfectionnement en langue arabe en vue de la recherche at the French Institute of Arabic Studies (IFEAD), Damascus, Syria
1994 – 1996
MA in Theology and Philosophy at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland; MA thesis at the chair of Medieval Philosophy
1992 – 1994
Studies in Jewish Thought, Philosophy and Semitic Languages at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel (research grant from the Swiss University Conference)
1989 – 1992
BA in Catholic Theology, Philosophy and Classics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Functions
2021
Member of Advisory Board, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
2019
Member of Advisory Board, Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies
2013
Member of Advisory Board, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
