Jaakko Hameen-Anttila

Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies

Biography

Background

He earned his PhD from the University of Helsinki (Finland) in 1994. Before coming to Edinburgh in June 2016, he worked as a Senior Researcher of the Finnish Academy 1997-2000 and Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Helsinki 2000-2016.

Undergraduate teaching

  • Classical Arabic Literature
  • Mystical Islam (Sufism)
  • Contribution to the core courses History and Culture of Iran and Classical Persian Literature

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

  • Lucy Deacon (ta'ziye - Shiite passion plays)
  • Badreldeen Ismail (Sufism and Ash'arite theology)
  • Mathew Barber (Mamluk and Fatimid historiography)

Past PhD students supervised

  • Inka Nokso-Koivisto, Microcosm-Macrocosm Analogy in Rasa'il Ikhwan as-Safa' and Certain Related Texts (Helsinki).
  • Ilkka Lindstedt, The Transmission of al-Madāʾinī’s Material. Historiographical Studies (Helsinki).
  • Simon Loynes, the Qur'anic concept of wahy.

Research summary

  • translation and textual transmission (Middle Persian - Arabic - Classical Persian)
  • the Shahname and its sources
  • life of Zarathustra (in Islamic sources)
  • Late Antiquity and Early Arab-Islamic culture
  • the Qur'an
  • Classical Arabic and Persian literature.

Current research interests

Dr Hämeen-Anttila is interested in Classical Arabic and Persian literature, Umayyad and Abbasid cultural history, the influence of Late Antiquity on the Arab-Islamic culture, the Qur'an, and translation and textual transmission especially between Arabic and Persian cultures from pre-Islamic times to the premodern period.

Project activity

Dr Hämeen-Anttila is editing a part of al-Maqrizi's al-Khabar 'an al-bashar for Brill's Bibliotheca Maqriziana. He is also writing a monograph on the Middle Persian Khwadaynamag (Book of Kings) and its influence on Arabic and Persian historiography.

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