Mohsen Goudarzi
On leave
Fall 2026, Spring 2027
Education
- MA, Stanford University
- PhD, Harvard University
Profile
Mohsen Goudarzi joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in July 2021, after previously teaching at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). He is a scholar of religion who studies the Qur’an and early Islamic history through literary, linguistic, comparative, and historical approaches. His work situates the Qur’an and early Islamic texts within the intellectual and social worlds of Late Antiquity and engages a range of Islamic scholarly traditions, especially the sciences of exegesis (tafsīr) and prophetic traditions (ḥadīth).
Goudarzi’s first book, History and Revelation in the Qur’an (forthcoming with Oxford University Press), examines the Qur’an’s conceptions of history, revelation, and prophecy through close conversation with biblical literature and the Islamic exegetical tradition. This work analyzes the Qur’an’s representations of the past systematically, redefines some of the Qur’an’s core concepts (such as kitāb), and advances a significantly new account of the Qur’an’s historical vision and of the place of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers within this vision.
Goudarzi is currently working on a second book project on the role of cultic rituals, particularly those associated with the Meccan sanctuary (the Kaʿba), in shaping social interaction and religious polemic between the earliest Muslims and other religious communities of their environment.
Courses
View HDS courses taught by Mohsen Goudarzi in my.Harvard.
Also view FAS courses taught by Mohsen Goudarzi. (HDS students: for jointly offered and reading and research courses, please enroll in the HDS version of the course.)
Selected publications
- “Worship (dīn), Monotheism (islām), and the Qur’an’s Cultic Decalogue,” Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 8 (2023): 30–71
- “The Eucharist in the Qur’an,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 34.2 (2023): 113–33
- “Unearthing Abraham’s Altar: The cultic dimensions of dīn, islām, and ḥanīf in the Qur’an,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 82.1 (2023): 77–102.
- “The Written Torah and the Oral Qurʾan in Pagan Mecca: Towards a New Reading of Q 6:91.” In Bruce Fudge et al. (eds), Non Sola Scriptura: Essays on the Qur’an and Islam in Honor of William A. Graham (Routledge, 2022), 3–22.
- "Peering Behind the Lines." Harvard Theological Review 113.3 (2020): 421-435.
- "The Ascent of Ishmael: Genealogy, Covenant, and Identity in Early Islam." Arabica 66.5 (2019): 415-484.
- “Inspiration, Intellect, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Post-Classical Islam.” In Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4), edited by G. Necipoğlu, C. Kafadar, and C. Fleischer (Brill, 2019), 267-308.
- Behnam Sadeghi & Mohsen Goudarzi, “Ṣanʿāʾ 1 and the Origins of the Qurʾān.” Der Islam 87 (2012): 1-129.
Support
To reach Harvard Divinity School's faculty coordinators, email div-faculty_coordinators@calists.harvard.edu.
For media inquiries or requests, please contact Tyler Sprouse in the Office of Communications.