Angelika Neuwirth

Germany's renowned expert on the Qur'an and also preeminent internationally in Qur'anic and Islamic studies. Scholarly work has focused on the literary dimensions, Near Eastern context and late-antique background of the Qur'anic text. Her major early work on the Meccan suras of the Qur'an is now a Qur'anic-studies classic. Her recently published Der Koran als Text Der Sp?tantike (2010) challenges accepted paradigms in Qur'anic research treating the text as a literary product that has grown in its late-ancient cultural, religious, and literary environment. She served as professor at the universities of Munich and Bamberg (1984-1991) and was director of the Orient-Institute of the Deutschen Morgenl?ndischen Gesellschaft in Beirut and Istanbul (1994-1999). She has taught annual courses on Islamic scripture and liturgy at the Benedictine Abbey Santa Maria Zion in Jerusalem since 1985. A visiting professor (1988-89) at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Neuwirth joined the Freie Universit?t Berlin as Professor in 1991 and has been prominent in Islamic studies at the German Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.