Rahel Fischbach

Bio

Rahel Fischbach is an Islamic Studies scholar with a focus on Qur’anic Studies. She studied Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and History at the Free University in Berlin (Germany), the IFPO in Damascus (Syria), and Columbia University in NY. In 2016, she received her PhD in Theology and Religious Studies from Georgetown University. Before coming to William & Mary in 2023, she completed a postdoc at Millsaps College, served as an assistant professor for Islamic Studies at James Madison University, and taught Islamic Theology at Innsbruck University (Austria).

She has published on contemporary Qur’ānic hermeneutics, secularism, gender, religious pluralism, and interfaith dialogue and taught classes on the Qur’ān, fiqh, history of the madhāhib (Islamic legal schools), Islamic Anthropology, women & gender, sīra (biography of the Prophet), Muslim-European cultures, and imperialism. She is currently completing her book, “Between God and History: Politics of Modern Muslim Qur’ān hermeneutics.” Her new research projects explore the aesthetics of violence in the Qur’ān and gender-just readings of the Islamic exegetical tradition (tafsīr).