Marcia Hermansen
Education
- Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (Arabic & Islamic Studies), University of Chicago — Dissertation: The Theory of Religion of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi
- Special Student, University of Toronto
- B.A. in General Arts, University of Waterloo, Canada
- Undergraduate studies, McGill University
Language Competency
- Arabic
- Persian
- Urdu
- French
- Spanish
- Italian
- German
- Dutch
- Turkish
Research Interests
- Islamic thought and theology
- Sufism (classical and contemporary/Western)
- Muslims in South Asia
- Muslims in America
- Women and gender in Islam
- Interfaith dialogue and comparative religion
- Shah Wali Allah of Delhi
Biography
Dr. Marcia Hermansen was appointed in 2025 as the inaugural holder of Habib University’s Lady Fatima Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity — the first endowed chair of its kind globally, housed within the Comparative Humanities program, dedicated to institutionalizing the scholarly study of women and the feminine aspects of divinity across the Muslim tradition and other faiths. She teaches courses on Islamic Studies and World Religions and continues to direct research connecting Islamic thought with contemporary global issues, including interfaith engagement and multicultural citizenship.
Dr. Hermansen joins Habib after a long and distinguished career at Loyola University Chicago, where she was Professor in the Theology Department (1997–2025) and served as founding Director of the Islamic World Studies Program (2006–2022). Before Loyola, she was Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University (1982–1997), a Visiting Professor at McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies (1985–1986), and briefly served in the Canadian Foreign Service, with postings to the UN General Assembly and as Vice-Consul at the Canadian Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela (1980–1981). She began her academic career as a Lecturer in the Religion Department at Queen’s University, Ontario (1979–1980).
She earned her Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago and has conducted extensive research and language training across Egypt, Jordan, India, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan — including a guest lecture on “Cultural Worlds/Culture Wars: Contemporary American Muslim Perspectives on the Role of Culture” at Habib University in 2016, nearly a decade before her formal appointment there. Over her career she has authored or edited numerous books and dozens of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on Sufism, Islamic theology, South Asian Muslim biographical literature, and Muslim women’s studies including numerous recent and forthcoming articles.
Selected Publications
- Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha (The Conclusive Argument from God). E.J. Brill, 1996; Pakistani edition, Islamic Research Institute: Islamabad, 2003; Malaysian edition, 2022.
- Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’s Treatises on Islamic Law. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011.
- Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians, co-edited with Ednan Aslan and Elif Medeni. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013.
- Brill Handbook of Sufism in Western Contexts, co-edited with Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh. E.J. Brill, 2023.
- Varieties of American Sufism: Islam, Sufi Orders and Authority in a Time of Transition co-edited with Elliott Bazzano. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2020.
- Religious Diversity at School: Educating for New Pluralistic Contexts, co-edited with Ednan Aslan. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2021.
- Peace Education: Philosophy, Pedagogy, Perspectives, co-edited with Ednan Aslan. Springer, 2022.
- Islam and Citizenship Education, co-edited with Ednan Aslan. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2015.
- Associate Editor, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. New York: MacMillan, 2003.
- “Sufism West and East in the Shahabnama of Qudratullah Shahab.” In From Rhine to Ravi: Festschrift for Ikram Chaghatai, Karachi: Islamic Research Academy, 2023, 29-46.
- “Tawḥīd, Transcendence, and Contingency in Islamic Thought” in Engaging the Madrasa: Tradition, History, Change.Ed. Ebrahim Moosa, South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, May 2026, pp. 125–152.
- “Shaykh Ibrahim Joel Kreps: A Sufi Sage of Montreal” in Sufism in Canada: Weaving Islamic Practice and Contemporary Spirituality, eds. Shobhana Xavier and Genevieve Mercier-Dalphond. University of British Columbia Press, 2025, 95–129.
- “The Category of Uvaysī Sufism according to Shāh Walī Allāh” in A Luminous Intellect: Essays in Honor of Hamid Algar. Edited by Alan Godlas and Amina Inloes. E.J. Brill, 2025, 237–254.
- “Shah Wali Allah and Islamic Mariology.” In Islamic Mariology, edited by Lejla Demiri, Sapientia Islamica. Forthcoming.
- “Speaking in the Master’s Voice: Ex-King Edward the Eighth’s Diary by Khwāja Ḥasan Niẓāmī.” Forthcoming in volume from Brill.
Full publication list spans over 40 years and includes dozens of additional peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on Islamic theology, Sufism, and Muslim women’s studies — available on request or via her Google Scholar profile.
Note on the Endowed Chair
The Lady Fatima Zahra Endowed Chair in Women and Divinity is described by Habib University as the first of its kind in the world, established to address a globally recognized gap in the scholarly study of women’s roles in religion and the feminine aspects of divinity across faith traditions, situated within an interfaith framework connected to the tradition of the Ahl-e-Bayt.
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