The Institute for Advanced Studies

The Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
September 1st, 2009 to July 31st, 2010.
Coordinators: Prof. M. Lecker and Prof. J. Patrich

The Members (in alphabetical order)

Prof. Israel Ephʿal, The Hebrew University (emeritus), author of The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent 9th-5th Centuries B.C., is studying new Akkadian and Aramaic sources related to Arabs and their relations with the Assyrian, Babylonian and Achaemenid empires.

Prof. Robert Hoyland, The University of Oxford, author of Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam, an expert on Arabian archaeology, history and culture, is studying the socio-economic situation of Arabia in the sixth and seventh centuries, and in particular how it was affected by the socio-economics of the superpowers of the day, Byzantium and Sassanian Iran, and what role it played in the rise of Islam.

Prof. Michael Lecker, The Hebrew University, a historian and philologist, is studying the Arabian society on the eve of Islam, especially the lacunae in the source material which led to wrong conceptions regarding the place of the sedentary populations and their relationship with the nomads, the role of Quraysh in Arabian economy and the phenomenon of leading families in the tribes.
http://michael-lecker.net/

Prof. Joseph Patrich, The Hebrew University, is an archaeologist studying Nabataean art as predominantly an expression of an Arab culture of high self-consciousness, the impact of the Nabataeans on Arab culture and Arabic script and the caravan routes from South Arabia and the Gulf to the Mediterranean in the light of recent archaeological finds.
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~patrichj/my_web_site/
 
Prof. Christian Robin, Collège de France, an expert on all matters Yemenite who surveyed and excavated extensively in the Yemen, is studying how the Ḥimyarite state functioned and the place of the Arabs in this process, the role of Judaism in the religious politics of Ḥimyar, Ḥimyar’s position in Arabia and its relations with the Empires and regional powers.

Prof. Uri Rubin, Tel Aviv University, an expert on Qurʾānic studies and early Islamic concepts, studying the local Arabian environment of the Qurʾān, including the Meccan pilgrimage (especially the status of the Kaʿba) and the “punishment stories” (especially the myths of Hūd and Ṣāliḥ and the “People of the Elephant”). He will explore the local themes in the Qurʾān and in the extra-Qurʾānic Islamic sources.
http://www.urirubin.com/