CAMPUS DIRECTORY

Teaching 

Dr. Yousefi teaches a variety of courses in history of the Middle East, Islamic history, and history of science. His regular course offering includes “World History since 1400” (HIST 102); “Islam and the world” (HIST/MEST 261; RELS 202); “Historians and Historical Methodology” (HIST 300W); “Middle Eastern Empires” (HIST/MEST 362); “The Modern Middle East” (HIST/MEST 363); “The Scientific Revolution” (HIST 365); “Muhammad and the Quran” (HIST 361/ RELS 302); Islamic Civilization (HIST 463); and the graduate seminar “Readings in Middle Eastern History” (HIST 660) which focuses on Modern Iran. 

Research 

Dr. Yousefi’s current research addresses the Shia religious establishment and state-clergy relations in modern Iran (19th and 20th centuries). He has also studied and published on the early Islamic history, focusing on the evolution of the Islamic state administration, late antique political thought, and Islamic public law. Administration of land tax under the Umayyads (661-750) and early Abbasids (750-833) constitutes a major focus of his research. 

Select Publications 

“The Paradox of ‘Scientific Revolution’ in Islamic Civilization,” Iran Namag 6.1 (2021): 163–77. In Persian: معمای ”انقلاب علمی“ در تمدن اسلامی 

“Confusion and Consent: Land Tax (Kharāj) and the Construction of Judicial Authority in the Early Islamic Empire (ca. 12–183 A.H./634–800 C.E.),” Sociology of Islam 7.2–3 (2019):1–41. 

“Division and Discord among the Shiʿa ʿUlamāʾ: New Lights on the Failure of the 1927 Anti-Conscription Movement in Iran,” Iranian Studies 50.5 (September 2017): 705–33. 

“Islam without Fuqahāʾ: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and his Perso-Islamic Solution to the Caliphate’s Crisis of Political Legitimacy (70–142 AH/690–760 CE)” Iranian Studies 50 (March 2017): 9–44. 

Review of Robert G. Hoyland, In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015) Review of Middle East Studies 49:2 (2015): 198–200. 

Review of Jocelyne Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam: An Exploration of Muslims in Liberal Democracies, Culture and Religion in International Relations(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) Sociology of Islam 2:2 (2014) 99–101. 

“Kharāj [land-tax],” Muhammad in History, Thought and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God, 2 vols., C. Fitzpatrick & A. Walker, editors, ABC-CLIO (2013) 335–338. 

Co-editor of Iranian Studies 41 (Sept 2008), Special Issue: Production of Knowledge in Iran and Eastern Islamic Lands (800-1740 C.E.). 

“Secular Sciences and the Question of ‘Decline’” Iranian Studies 41 (Sept 2008):559–79. 

“Privacy: Erosion or Evolution?” Chasing Moore’s Law: Information Technology in the United States, ed. William Aspray, SciTech Publishing (2004) 161–199.