Welcome! I’m a Middle East expert, and my mission is to bring medieval Islamic civilization to a wider public through scholarship, teaching, editing, translation, journalism, podcasts, and public lectures.

In my role as Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Brigham Young University, I study and teach Arabic and Islamic Studies. Currently I am writing a book about the blind freethinker al-Ma`arri and Islamic animal ethics. My work has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the University of Oxford, and the Danish Independent Research Fund (DFF), among other organizations.

I also write for the popular press. I am a contributing editor at New Lines Magazine and my work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and more. I tweet as @AmericanMaghreb.