Hamza Zafer

Early Islamic period, textural studies, Islamics, Qur’an.

Hamza Zafer is an Associate Professor of early Islam and Classical Arabic in the Deparment of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, Comparative Religion, and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research focuses on the Quran’s polemical engagements with Jewish communities in Arabia, and the portrayal of these communities in the earliest Muslim historical and exegetical writings up to the 9th century. His doctoral dissertation examines the emergence and expression of a religio-communal ideology among early Muslims, as it co-opts, appropriates and subverts the legacy of the biblical “Children of Israel”.