Department of Religious Studies
Department of Religious Studies
John Zaleski

John Zaleski

rxu7pd@virginia.edu

Education

  • BA, Dartmouth College
  • MA, Harvard University
  • PhD, Harvard University

Research Interests

Greek, Syriac, and Arabic Christian traditions; Christian-Islamic exchange; asceticism and monasticism; Sufism; Christian and Islamic rational theology (kalām); scriptural exegesis

My research centers on the Syriac and Arabic Christian traditions and their development within the early Islamic world. I am especially interested in the religious and intellectual encounters of Christians and Muslims. My current book project examines debates among Christians, Muslims, and Jews concerning the afterlife, the justice and mercy of God, and the possibility of universal salvation. Other projects, also focused on the early Islamic world, investigate Christian and Islamic asceticism and scriptural exegesis. In pursuing these interests, I explore the questions raised by Christians in a multireligious milieu — from broad inquiries about truth and discernment (how can one identify religious truth or distinguish selfless from self-serving motivation?) to specific questions about ascetic practice (should monks drink wine?) — and I examine the forms of religious knowledge and interreligious exchange that nurtured such questions.

Teaching

  • Eastern Christianity
  • Christian-Muslim Encounters
  • Tutorial on Icons

Selected Publications

  • “Spiritual Life.” Forthcoming in Cambridge Companion to the Abbasids, ed. Nadia El Cheikh, Bilal Orfali, and Maurice Pomerantz (Cambridge University Press).
  • “Divine Intellects in the Desert: Dionysius bar Ṣalībī’s Commentary on the Kephalaia Gnostica.” Forthcoming in Évagre en Orient, ed. Matteo Poiani and David Michelson, Eastern Christian Cultures in Contact (Brepols).
  • “Universal Salvation in Christian and Islamic Thought: The Arabic Reception of Isaac of Nineveh.” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 5 (2022): 71–94.
  • “Sufi Asceticism and the Sunna of the Prophet in al-Junayd’s Adab al-Muftaqir ilā Allāh.” Journal of Islamic Studies (Oxford) 32 (2021): 1–26.
  • “‘Who is the Man on the Camel?’: Historical Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and Christian-Muslim Debate.” Medieval Encounters 26 (2020): 49–80.