Sean Anthony
Contact Information
Professor
Areas of Expertise
- Religion and Society in Late Antiquity and Medieval Islam
- Early Canonical Literatures of Islam (Qur’an and Hadith)
- Statecraft and Political Thought from the Early Islamic period (ca. AD 600-1250)
- Comparative Apocalypticism and Messianism
Education
- Ph.D., University of Chicago, Near East Languages and Civilizations
Professor Sean W. Anthony is a philologist and historian who specializes in the Late Ancient Near East and the early Islamic period. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Qur’anic Studies Association.
Recent books and monographs:
Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association
LAMINE 5. The Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614 CE by Strategius of Mar Saba
Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam
The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad
Recently published articles:
“Revisiting The Letter to the Proponents of Freewill (al-Risālah ilā l-Qadariyyah) attributed to the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99-101/717-720),” in Lives in Adab: Studies in Honour of Julia Bray, ed. Alexander Matthew Key and Letizia Ostia (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2026), 339-360.
“The Arabs and the Ummah of Muḥammad,” Der Islam 102.2 (2025): 363-408.
“The Early Aramaic Toledot Yeshu and the End of Jesus’s Earthly Mission in the Qur’an,” Studies in Late Antiquity 9.2 (2025): 151-185.
“The Justly Killed Imam: A Muʿtazilī Defense of the Regicide of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (r. 23-36/644-656),” Journal of Abbasid Studies 12.2 (2025): 113-168.
“The Eschatological Muḥammad: Post-Qur’ānic Prophetology in Arabic Inscriptions from the 7th-8th Centuries AD,”Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 56 (2025): 165-219.
“A ‘Rediscovered’ Letter of the Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 717-720 ce): Caliphal Authorship and Legal Authority in al-Risāla fī l-Fayʾ,” in Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World: Knowledge, Authority and Legitimacy, ed. Sonja Brentjes, Maribel Fierro, and Tilman Seidensticker, Islamic History and Civilization 213 (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 47-88.
“The Virgin Annunciate in the Meccan Qurʾan: Q. Maryam 19:19 in Context,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 81.2 (2022): 363-385.