Dr Sarah Bowen Savant, Assistant Professor is an historian of religion. She received her MA from the University of Chicago in the History of Religions and her PhD from Harvard University under the Committee on the Study of Religion. 

Dr Savant's areas of academic interest include: Qur'anic exegesis and reception history, Hadith and historiography, and religion and society.

Contact Details

Email address: sarah.savant@aku.edu
Telephone: 020 7907 1059

Research Projects

Finding Our Place in the Past: Genealogy and Ethnicity in Islam. A study focusing on genealogy which examines the importance of the pre-Islamic prophetic past for the incorporation of non-Arabs into Islam. The Foundation for Iranian Studies selected the dissertation upon which the book is based as the best dissertation on a topic of Iranian studies for 2005-2006.

Shu'ubism. A study of a set of classical discourses about the value of Arab ethnicity by Persians known as Shu'ubis and their opponents. The study also engages questions of assimilation and distinction; reinvention and preservation; and domination and resistance.  It includes a one hundred-page English translation of Ibn Qutayba's Fadl al-'Arab (9th Century), the longest surviving source on the Shu'ubis.

A History of Reception. A series of studies relating to Islam in Iran, including a literary analysis of Sunni and Shi'i works treating Muhammad's companion, Salman al-Farisi.

Publications

• Bowen Savant, Sarah, (forthcoming 2008) "Genealogy" and "Shu‛ūbiyya", Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton University Press, Princeton (forthcoming)
• Bowen Savant, Sarah, (forthcoming 2008) "Persians after the Arab Conquests", Annales Islamologiques, vol. 42. The volume is dedicated to 'social groups and social categorisation in mediaeval Dar al-Islam (7th-15th centuries CE)
• Bowen Savant, Sarah, (2006) 'Isaac as the Persians' Ishmael: Pride and the Pre-Islamic Past in Medieval Islam', Comparative Islamic Studies, vol. 2, no. 1

Selected Paper Presentations/Talks

• "Genealogical Representation amidst Iran's Conversion to Islam." Annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, Qur'an and Biblical Literature Section pre-arranged panel, 'Approaches to Biblical Genealogy in Muslim Societies.' San Diego, CA. November, 2007.
• "Studying Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period." Aga Khan University, ISMC Research Seminar. London. March, 2007.
• "Persia 's Elites After the Arab Conquests: Shu'ubism in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries."  The University of California, Berkeley, Sultan Post-Doctoral Scholar lecture.  Berkeley, CA. November, 2006.
• "Shu'ubism in Classical Islam." Invited presentation for Institute for Advanced Study colloquium, "Natives as Members of Imperial and Post-Imperial Elites: Apologetics and 'Shu'ubiyya' in Hellenism and Islam." Princeton, NJ . May, 2006.
• "Ibn Qutayba and His Fadl-al-'Arab: Constructing Arab and 'Ajami Identity in Medieval Islam."  Annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. Washington, DC . November, 2005.
• "Muhammad's Spiritual Ancestors and Their Blood Descendents: Charting Persian Identity in Medieval Islam." Annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Section for the Study of Islam. San Antonio, TX. November, 2004.