Nerina Rustomji

Nerina Rustomji specializes in the intellectual and cultural formation of Islamic societies and the Middle East. Since joining St. John's University in 2006, she has offered both undergraduate and graduate courses in medieval Islamic and modern Middle East history. Additionally, she is interested in aesthetics, gendered configurations, biological and commercial exchanges, secularism, and America's relationship with Muslim worlds.

While trained as a medievalist, Rustomji's research seeks to collapse disciplinary categories structured by time, space, and genre. The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture." (Columbia University Press, 2009) narrates a history of heaven and hell from the seventh century C.E. through the lens of material culture. The Garden and the Fire demonstrates that even otherworldly realms have histories that are shaped by Muslims’ ethical formulations, aesthetic sensibilities, religious reform, and unending impulse to contemplate the everlasting future.