Dr. Walid Saleh

Biography

Walid Saleh studied Arabic language and literature at the American University of Beirut, where he earned his BA in 1989. He completed his PhD in Islamic studies at Yale University in 2001. Professor Saleh is a specialist in the Qur'an, the history of interpretation (Tafsir), and the Arabic manuscript tradition, with a keen focus on Islamic apocalyptic literature and the Muslim reception of the Bible. His book, Formation of the Classical Tafsir Tradition, published by Brill in 2004, is a monograph-length study exploring the influence of al-Thalabi (d. 1035) on the history of Qur'an commentary. Another notable work, Defense of the Bible (Brill, 2008), is an extensive examination and edition of al-Biqa‘i’s (d. 1480) treatise discussing the permissibility of quoting Old Scriptures within Islamic religious tradition. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation in 2014 and the Konrad Adenauer Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation in Germany in 2017. Additionally, he has been granted funding from the SSHRC and the Kluge Foundation at the Library of Congress. Professor Saleh serves on the editorial board of several journals, including the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the Journal of Qur’anic Studies, and teaches courses on Islamic studies, focusing on the Qur'an and the Tafsir tradition, as well as advanced courses in Arabic paleography and manuscript tradition.

Research Interests

Experience