Dr Andrew J. Newman is a reader in Islamic Studies and Persian at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a BA in History, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, and an MA and PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Dr Newman joined Edinburgh University in 1996, having been a Research Fellow at both the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford and Green College, Oxford, whilst researching topics in the history of Islamic medicine.
As well as a large number of academic articles on Islamic Studies and Persian History, he has authored two books: The Formative Period of Shi'i Law: Hadith as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad (2000) and Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (2006) His work on Safavid Iran won Iran's book of the year prize for 2007 in the category of Iranian Studies.
Email: a.newman@ed.ac.uk
Dr Newman holds a BA in History, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, and an MA and PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Dr Newman joined IMES in 1996, having been a Research Fellow at both the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford and Green College, Oxford, whilst researching topics in the history of Islamic medicine.
Publications
Books
Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (London: I B Tauris, 2006), ISBN 86064 6670 (hardcover); (London: I B Tauris, 2008) ISBN 9781845118303 (softcover)
The Formative Period of Shi'i Law: Hadith as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), ISBN 0 7007 1277 1 (hardcover); (London: Routledge, 2010) ISBN 978-0-415-61636-2 (softcover)
Edited Volumes
Islamic Medical Wisdom: the Tibb al-A'imma, Batool Ispahany, transl., (London: Muhammadi Trust, 1991), ISBN 0 946 079 86 2
Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East, Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), ISBN 90 04 12774 7
Articles/Chapters in Books
'Towards a Reconsideration of the Isfahan School of Philosophy: Shaykh Baha'i and the Role of the Safawid Ulama', Studia Iranica (Paris), Tome 15, fasc. 2 (1986), 165-199;
'The Nature of the Akhbari/Usuli Dispute in Late-Safawid Iran. Part One: 'Abdallah al-Samahiji's "Munyat al-Mumarisin" ', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 55, i (1992), 22-51;
'The Nature of the Akhbari/Usuli Dispute in Late-Safawid Iran. Part Two: The Conflict Reassessed', BSOAS, Vol. 55, ii (1992), 250-261;
'The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shi'ite Opposition to Ali al-Karaki and Safawid Shi'ism', Die Welt des Islams, Vol. 33 (1993), 66-112;
'Safavids - religion, philosophy and science', Encyclopedia of Islam, series 2, VIII: 777-787;
"Tashrih-e Mansuri': Human Anatomy Between the Galenic and Prophetic Medical Traditions", in La Science dans le Monde Iranien, ed. Z. Vesel, et. al. (Tehran: Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran, 1998), 253-71;
'Sufism and Anti-Sufism in Safavid Iran: The Authorship of the "Hadiqat al-Shi'a" Revisited ', IRAN, XXXVII (1999), 95-108;
'Clerical Perceptions of Sufi Practices in Late Seventeenth-Century Persia: Arguments Over the Permissibility of Singing (Ghina)', in L. Lewisohn and D. Morgan, eds., The Heritage of Sufism, Vol. III: Late Classical Persianate Sufism: the Safavid and Mughal Period (1501-1750) (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 135-64;
'Fayd al-Kashani and the Rejection of the Clergy/State Alliance: Friday Prayer as Politics in the Safavid Period', in Linda Walbridge, ed.,The Most Learned of the Shi'a, The Institution of the Marja' Taqlid (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 34-52;
'Baqir al-Majlisi and Islamicate Medicine: Safavid Medical Theory and Practice Re-examined', in Newman, ed., Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East, Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 371-96;
'Between Qum and the West: The Occultation According to al-Kulayni and al-Katib al-Nu`mani' in F. Daftary, ed., Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam: Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 94-108;
'Anti-Akhbari Sentiments among the Qajar `Ulama: The Case of Muhammad Baqir al-Khwansari (d. 1313/1895)', in R. Gleave, ed., Religion and Society in Qajar Iran (London: Routledge/Curzon: 2005), 155-73;
'The Vezir and the Mulla: a late Safavid period debate on Friday prayer', in M. Bernardini, M. Haneda and M. Szuppe, eds., Études sur L'Iran Médiéval et Moderne Offertes à Jean Calmard, Eurasian Studies, v. 1-2 (2006), 237-69;
‘Baqir al-Majilisi and Islamicate Medicine II: "al-Risala al-dhahabiyya" in Bihar al-anwar’ in Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, et al., eds., Le Shiisme Imamite Quarante Ans Apres (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 349-361;
'Clerical Perceptions of Sufi Practices in Late 17th Century Persia, II: al-Hurr al-Amili (d. 1693) and the Debates on the Permissability of Ghina' in Y. Suleiman, ed., Living Islamic History: Studies in Honour of Professor Carole Hillenbrand (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 192-207;
'Monolithic or Dynamic: The Safavid Court and the Subaltern in the Late Seventeenth Century' in Albrecht Fuess and Jan-Peter Hartung, eds., Court Cultures in the Muslim World, Seventh to Nineteenth Centuries (London: Routledge, 2011), 185-201.
Other
Dr Newman is the founder and moderator of 'Shii News', an e-mail list started in 2009 that now serves more than 245 academics and non-academics across the world who are interested in all forms of Shi`ism and Shi`i expression and their study both past and present. For further information and to be added to the list, contact Dr Newman at the above email address. An associated website, 'The Shi`i Studies Network', is under development.
Dr Newman is a Member of the Founding Editorial Board of the 'Islamic Studies' section of Oxford Bibliographies Online.
In August 1998 Dr Newman organised 'The Third International Round Table on Safavid Persia'. Over three days forty-one speakers drawn from a variety of sub-disciplines within the field of Safavid studies delivered papers. Selected papers from the Round Table have been published as Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East, Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), as listed herein.
