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Honorary Associate Professor Ahmad Shboul, AM

License ès letters (Damascus), PhD (University of London)
Honorary Associate Professor
Room 739, Brennan MacCallum Building A18

Phone: +61 2 9351 5645
Fax: +61 2 9351 2319

Please follow this link for a full profile of Associate Professor Ahmad Shboul.

Research Areas

  • Intellectual history and historiography of the Arab-Islamic world
  • Arab-Greek (especially Byzantine) cultural relations and mutual perceptions
  • Cities, human geography and cultural dynamics in Arab and Islamic history
  • Islam, society and politics in the contemporary Middle East
  • Aesthetics of place in creative Arabic literature (poetry and the novel).

Current Projects

  • Secular Orientations and Tendencies in Islamic Thought and Practice
  • Cultural Moments in the History and Historiography of Damascus and Greater Syria (7th-11th Centuries CE)
  • The Poetics of Hellenic Motifs in the Work of Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

Selected Publications

Books and book chapters

  • Al-Mas‘udi and his World: A Muslim Humanist and His Interest in non-Muslims, London, Ithaca, 1979, 366pp.
  • History of Arab Islamic Civilisation (in Arabic), 12th edition, Amman, Jordan, 1993 (co-author: A. Khleifat), 238pp.
  • Islamic Radicalism in the Arab World. The Middle East: Prospect for Peace and Settlement (Canberra, ANU, 1995, 29-68
  • Christians and Muslims in Syria and upper Mesopotamia in the Early Islamic Period: Cultural Change and Continuity, in Religious Change, Conversion and Culture, Sydney, 1996 (Sydney Studies in Society and Culture),
  • Arab-Islamic Perception of Byzantine Religion and Culture. Muslim Perceptions of Other Religions: A Historical Survey, ed. Jacques Waardenburg, New York, Oxford University press, 1999
  • Byzantium and the Arabs: the Image of the Byzantines as mirrored in Arabic Literature. Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times, ed. Michael Bonner, New York, Ashgate, 2004 (Formation of the Classical Islamic World Series, vol. 8)
  • Islam and Globalisation: Arab World Perspectives. Islamic Perspectives on the New Millennium, ed. Virginia Hooker, Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004, reprint 2006
  • ‘Between Rhetoric and Reality: Islam and Politics in the Arab World’, in Islam and Politics in the Modern World, ed. A. Johns and N, Lahoud, London and New York, Routledge, 2005, 170-191
  • Arab attitudes Towards Byzantium: Official, Learned, Popular. ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΡΙΑ: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey for her 8th Birthday, Camberley, England, Porphyrogenitus, 1988, 111-128
  • Prospects for Peace and Stability. After the Gulf War, ed. St John Kettle and Stephanie Dowrick, Sydney, Pluto, 1991, 7-25

Book chapters: translations

  • Muhammad ibn Mankali, On Naval Warfare in the Mediterranean
    [a] al-adilla al-rasmiyya fi’l-ta‘abi al-harbiyya (Official instructions for military mobilization)
    [b] Al-ahkam al-mulukiyya wa’l-dawabit al-namusiyya (Book of royal rules), translated by Ahmad Shboul. Published in The Age of the Dhromon: The Byzantine Navy ca 500-1204, John Pryor and Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, Leiden, Brill 2006.

Articles: scholarly journals

  • Having in Arabic. Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik (Journal of Arabic Linguistics, Germany, 1983),
  • Islam and the Australian Media: the Implications of Distorting Mirrors, Australian Religion Studies Review, Volume 2, 1990
  • Arab Society and Culture’, Voices, Canberra, National Library of Australia, Winter 1993,
  • Change and Continuity in Early Islamic Damascus’, ARAM, Oxford-Leuven, Volume 6, 1994
  • Identity and Self-image in Syria-Palestine in the Transition from Byzantine to Early Islamic Rule’ (joint author: Alan G. Walmsley), Mediterranean Archaeology, volume 11, 1998,
  • The Arab Poet and the City: Modernity and Alienation, in Aesthetics and Literature, Sydney, Volume 15 (December 2005).
  • Different journeys: Place, Self and Imagination in the Classical Arabic Poetic Tradition’ in Literature and Aesthetics, Sydney, Volume 16 (December 2006)
  • Gendered Space and dynamics in Saudi Arabian Cities: Riyadh and Dammam in Turki al-Hamad’s Trilogy’, Literature and Aesthetics, Sydney, Volume 17 (July 2007).

Articles: international reference works

  • Article ‘Sadr’ in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed. John Esposito, New York, Oxford University Press, 1995
  • Article ‘Taqwa’, in the same Encyclopaedia
  • Twenty articles in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander Kazhdan, New York, Oxford University Press, 1991

Other essays: community-oriented

  • Beyond Dialogue: Towards Mutual Acceptance and Sharing the Spirit of Living and Working Together’, in Inter-faith Dialogue is a Sacred Mission: proceedings of forums held by the Australian Christian-Muslim Friendship Society, Sydney 2007, pp.50-61
  • Muhammad Haneef Case: Australia between Fear of terrorism and fear of curbing freedom. AlHayat Newspaper London, 21 July 2007 (commissioned article – in Arabic) (also published in El-Telegraph and in al-Anwar, Sydney).

In preparation

  • Cultural moments in the history and historiography of Damascus and greater Syria, 7th-11th centuries CE (major work based on an ARC research project);
  • Islamic themes and motifs in Nikos Kazantzakis (based on a seminar presented in December 2005);
  • Displaying and ‘covering’ Byzantium abroad: Arab Islamic appraisals of Byzantine civilization (based on a conference paper, 2006);
  • Greek Destinies in the Arab World: Prominent Muslims of Greek Background in the Classical Islamic period (paper presented at the Annual Modern Greek Studies Conference, Sydney, 4 December 2006);
  • Views of Classical Muslim intellectuals on Art, Calligraphy and Aesthetics (based on a research paper presented at the International Conference on Islamic Art, Isfahan, Iran , 30 December 2006);
  • Damascus to Geneva: the Poetics of Cosmopolitanism, Love and Exile in the work of Nizar Qabbani (paper presented at the ‘Modernity and the City’ workshop, Sydney, 15 June 2007);
  • Hellenic motifs in the poetry of Mahmud Darwish (paper for forthcoming Annual Modern Greek Studies Conference La Trobe, late 2008).

Doctoral Supervision

  • The life, works and intellectual contribution of Shaykh ‘Abd al–Samad al-Falembānī (Muhammad Hussain Ahmad, 2005-)
  • Islamic Reformism and modernity (Syed Safdar Ahmed – 2005-)
  • Dynamics and perceptions of social movements in Egypt and Iran (Tara Mariam Povey - 2008)

Conference Activity

  • Numerous research papers presented at international conferences and symposia: in Australia, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, India, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.

Other Professional Contributions

  • Frequent public lecturer: on Islam and politics in the modern world, the current Middle East situation, the Arab World, and cultural issues (to audiences at several Australian academic institutions, schools, government departments, Media organisations, Australian business and industry establishments, NGOs)
  • Founding Fellow of the Research institute on Asia and the Pacific (RIAP), Sydney
  • Member of the Advisory Council for Multicultural Affairs, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, (1996-1999)
  • Member of the Council for Australian-Arab Relations, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2003-6).
  • Past President of the Australasian Middle East Studies Association
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