Arthur Schechter
Education
BA '19, Brown University
MA '21, University of Chicago Divinity School
Research Interests
Shiʿism; Sufism; Safavid and Ottoman Studies; Social and Intellectual History of Islam
Arthur's research on the interfaces between theoretical Sufism and embodied practice has been published in the Journal of Sufi Studies (Brill) and presented at the American Academy of Religion. His current work focuses on novel exchanges between Sufi and Shiʿi intellectual traditions and their popularization through Persian and Turkish vernacular literatures between the Mongol and Safavid periods (ca. 1258-1501).
He is interested in examining the medieval Sufi brotherhoods that promoted “Shiʿa sympathy” across social and cultural boundaries in premodern Islam. His research also investigates the role that economic and political pressures played in transforming this forgotten landscape of confessional ambiguity into one of sectarian conflict.
Arthur is equally passionate about questions of theory and method in the study of religion, disciplinary boundaries between intellectual and social history, and in what ways continuing the centuries-old practice of "studying Islam" according to Euro-American methods of scholarship can contribute to the humanities and liberal arts situated in global context today.
Publications
Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook, Arthur Schechter and Rami Dawood. “Light on the History of Australian Sufism: A Persianate Qādirī Cameleer Prayer Book.” Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies [forthcoming, 2026].
“Islam as a Theurgy of Virtues? Emanationist Ethics, Lay Practice and Shiʿism in the Vernacular Writings of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 1329).” Traditions in Transformation, edited by Ufuk Topkara. Berlin: DeGruyter [forthcoming, 2026].
“Review of The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names of God in the Qurʾan ed. by Yousef Casewit.” In Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 9, no. 1 (2024): 77-89.
"Nearness to the Real: Sainthood as Ontological Proximity in the Thought of Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī." In Journal of Sufi Studies, no. 11 (2022), pp. 1-44.
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. Imam Ghazali's Book of Counsels. Edited by Saad Ansari, Shoaib Shah, Yaseen Christian Andrewsen. Translated by Aamir Bashir, Arthur Schechter, Imane El-Marzouki, Tarek Alhariri, Yaseen Christian Andrewsen. London: Turath Publishing, 2021.
Conference Papers
“What Kind of Shiʿa were the Pre-Islamic Safavids? Questions of Law, Theology and Ritual from New and Neglected Sources.” Shii Studies Symposium. University of Chicago, May 2026.
“Critique and Moral Failure: Was the Rise of Shi’ism in Iran Ethically Legible?” Forum on Jewish-Muslim Thought and Theology. University of Vienna, October 2025.
“The Divine Imam as Uncreated Qurʾan: The Late Medieval (ca. 1300-1500) Reconstruction of Shiʿi “Extremism” (ghuluww) with Sunni Theology,” The Qur’an and Shi’i Islam: Texts, Studies, Legacies. Shi’a Research Institute and University of Toronto (virtual/hybrid), August 2025.
“The Divine Imam as Uncreated Qurʾan: The Late Medieval (ca. 1300-1500) Reconstruction of Shiʿi “Extremism” (ghuluww) with Sunni Theology,” American Academy of Religion Online Meeting. Virtual, June 2025.
“Thinking More Historically about Islam and Violence? A Case Study of the Early Safavid Dynasty,” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego, CA, November 2024.
“The Hidden Imam in the Teachings of the Early Niʿmatullāhiyya: Sufi Shiʿism and Communal Autonomy in Iran before the Safavid Empire,” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego, CA, November 2024.
“Confessional Ambiguity or Proto-Shiʿism? Devotion to the Twelfth Imam in Medieval Sufism,” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. San Antonio, TX, November 2023.
“The Acquisition of Meaning (Maʿnā) as Divine Emanation in Applied Islamic Ethics,” International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan (Virtual), July 2023.
“Nearness to the Real: Sainthood as Ontological Proximity in the Thought of Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī,” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Virtual, November 2020.
Awards and Honors
UVA Islamic Worlds Initiative Howell Grant (2026)
Raven Society (inducted 2025)
UVA (PhD Plus), Graduate Instructor Seminar on the Teaching of Writing (2025)
National Humanities Center Graduate Student Summer Residency (2025)
UVA, Karsh Institute of Democracy Graduate Fellowship (2024-25)
UVA Religious Studies Research Award (2024)
The University of Virginia Provost’s Fellowship (2024-)
The University of Chicago FLAS Fellowship (2020-21, declined)
The University of Chicago FLAS Fellowship (Summer 2020)
The University of Chicago Divinity School Scholarship (2019-21)
Indiana University FLAS Fellowship (2019-20, declined)
Brown University Bishop McVickar Prize (2019)
Brown University William Gaston Premium Scholarship (2017)