Joel Blecher is a historian of medieval Islam, whose scholarship and teaching also addresses how the classical Islamic tradition continues to operate in the modern world. His research, which combines methods from social and intellectual history, is grounded in archives and field sites in Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and India, as well as various manuscript libraries across Europe and North America.
He received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2013 and is currently an Assistant Professor of History at George Washington University. His work has been published in scholarly journals and several edited volumes, and he has also been invited to speak about the Islamic world on Public Radio and has contributed to the Atlantic.
Joel Blecher's first book, Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary across a Millennium (University of California Press, 2018), explores the rich history of the practice of hadith commentary in the times and places it flourished the most—classical Andalusia, medieval Egypt, and early modern India. Weaving together tales of public debates, high court rivalries, and colonial politics with analyses of ethnographic field notes and fine-grained arguments adorning the margins of manuscripts, this book opens new avenues for scholars who study interpretive traditions over long periods of time and geographical expanses.
