Assistant Director of Graduate Studies: Supriya Gandhi [Fall 2024], Travis Zadeh [Spring 2025]
Teaching Group in Islamic Studies: Supriya Gandhi, Shawkat Toorawa, Travis Zadeh
The Yale University Ph. D. Program in Islamic Studies is devoted to comprehensive research on the religion of Islam and to training superior students for academic careers in that field. Students accepted into the program are offered full scholarships along with a multi-year stipend. Islamic Studies is one of ten fields in the Department of Religious Studies, where students and professors researching different religious traditions interact.
Students in Islamic Studies are expected to develop both a comprehensive knowledge of Islamic intellectual history and religious thought, as well as mastery of a field of specialization and the requisite tools for critical scholarship on Islam. They are expected to demonstrate competence in Islamic religious history (focusing on the development of Islamic civilization, law, society and institutions in the period from the origins of Islam to 1500 CE); Islamic religious thought (focusing on Islamic philosophy, theology, Sufism and Shi’ism); Islamic scripture and tradition (focusing on the composition, redaction and interpretation of Qur’an and Hadith); and modern and contemporary Islam (focusing on 16th to 21st century developments in the Arab Middle East, the Turco-Iranian world, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and, most recently, Europe and America). Arabic language and literature, as well as Persian and Turkish, are taught in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Modern Iranian history and Islamic political thought are taught respectively in the Department of History and Political Science.
Contact Information
Professor Supriya Gandhi
Yale University Program in Islamic Studies
320 York Street
P.O. Box 208287
New Haven, CT 06520-8287
supriya.gandhi@yale.edu