Biography

Nicolai Sinaï holds a PhD in Arabic Studies from the Free University Berlin (2007) and is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Pembroke College. His main field of research is the Qur’an and Qur’anic exegesis, but he also has a strong interest in the history of philosophy and theology in the Islamic world. His current work focuses on the Medinan stratum of the Qur’an and its place in the literary and cultural world of Late Antiquity. He hopes that Zukunftsphilologie will allow him to learn more about how scriptural interpretation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam compares to other exegetical cultures. Nicolai’s books include Fortschreibung und Auslegung: Studien zur frühen Koraninterpretation (2009), where he explored the phenomenon of inner-Qur’anic interpretation as a process of canon formation, and studied the typologies and strategies of early Muslim exegesis. Nicolai has also produced a German translation and commentary of the 12th century philosopher, Shihāb ad-Dīn as-Suhrawardī’s Philosophy of Illumination (Ḥikmat al-ishrāq: Die Philosophie der Erleuchtung, 2011).

Bibliography (selection)

– Fortschreibung und Auslegung, Studien zur frühen Koraninterpretation, Wiesbaden, 2009.
– ‘Qur’anic Self-Referentiality as a Strategy of Self-Authorization’ in
Stefan Wild (ed.), Self-Referentiality in the Qur’an (Wiesbaden, 2006),
– ‘Die Koranforschung tritt in die kritische Phase ein: Eine Antwort auf Karl-Heinz Ohligs Thesen zum Stand der Islamwissenschaft’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 28.12.2006
– ‘The Qur’an as Process’ in Angelika Neuwirth and Nicolai Sinai (eds), The Qur’an in Context (Leiden 2007), and (translated from the French in cooperation with Ulrich Johannes Schneider), Pierre Aubenque, Der Begriff der Klugheit bei Aristoteles (Hamburg, 2007).