1. Research

2. Journalism

3. Books in English

4. Fiction

5. References

6. External links

Uriya Shavit (born June 22, 1975) is an Israeli scholar of Islamic law, theology and politics. Currently, Shavit is the head of both The Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and of The Religious Studies Program at Tel Aviv University.Since 2014, he has served as an associate professor of Islamic Studies at Tel Aviv University. In addition to his work as a scholar, Shavit is a former journalist and the author of a best-selling novel and five books for young readers.

Research

Shavit is a specialist in the study of the development of fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-Muslima – the field in Islamic jurisprudence that deals with issues pertaining to Muslim minorities in non-Islamic countries. His scholarly publications, which are largely based on primary source material collected in mosques from across Europe and the United States, suggest that two main contesting doctrines have developed in this field – the Wasati and the Salafi doctrines. Shavit argues that the notion of "migrants as missionaries" has facilitated pragmatic religious decisions that promote Muslim integration in non-Muslim majority societies. In field studies, conducted mainly in Germany, England and Iceland, he examined the creative ways in which Muslim communities accept, reject and mitigate fatwas.

Shavit has also written on modern Islamic political thought. His studies analyze Islamist works that attempt to reconcile political thought based on traditional revelation with liberal democracy. He argues, for example, that the Muslim Brothers have intentionally avoided making a decision on whether the ultimate arbitrators on constitutional matters in an Islamic democracy should be unelected theologians. His studies also examined the role the concepts of Western "cultural imperialism" and decline play in modern Islamist thought. Shavit has also analyzed Arab writings on Zionism, suggesting that since the late 19th century, the Zionist project has played the dual role of an enemy and a role model among both Arab Islamists and liberals.

Shavit's studies on political violence in Islam argue that the Muslim Brothers accepted juristic notions that rendered a violent revolution legitimate only to the extent that its success is assured.

Several of his works examined through field studies how advanced media technologies impact migrants, arguing that the internet and satellite television allow, for the first time in history, a separation between affinity to a territory and a sense of belonging to an imagined community. He introduced the ideal-type of "passive transnational" to describe one result of this development. Shavit demonstrated the failure of Islamic web portals and satellite channels to create a global imagined Muslim nation.

In his study on the theory of evolution in Arab thought, Shavit argues that through the impact of American fundamentalists, Islamists shifted from critically legitimizing Darwinism in the early 20th century, to fiercely attacking it by the end of the century.

Journalism

Between 1997 and 2008, Shavit was a columnist, senior writer, international affairs analyst and editor for Haaretz. He later served as the editor-in-chief of the weekend magazines of Maariv and Makor Rishon, and as a literary critic for Yediot Ahronot. Today, he frequently comments on current Middle Eastern Affairs on Israeli national television.

Books in English

• The New Imagined Community: Global Media and the Construction of National and Muslim Identities of Migrants (Brighton, Portland and Vancouver: Sussex Academic Press, 2009). According to WorldCat, the book is held in 155 libraries^[1] Based on a one-year field study in four Arabic-speaking and one German-speaking mosque in Frankfurt am Main, the book examines how German-Muslims of Arab extraction respond to contesting conceptualizations of religious identity that are promoted through the internet and satellite television. It demonstrates the technical and notional oppositions and limitations, that attempts to recreate an imagined, universal Muslim umma are facing. This study received over 20 quotations in academic publications and positive reviews in several academic journals. .^[2]
• Islamism and the West: From “Cultural Attack” to “Missionary Migrant” (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). According to WorldCat, the book is held in 109 libraries^[3] The book examines the centricity of theories on Western “cultural imperialism” in Islamist discourses on Western-Muslim relations since the late 19th century to the present day and the multitude functions they have played in Islamist politics.^[4]
• Shari‘a and Muslim Minorities: The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).According to WorldCat, the book is held in 116 libraries^[5] Based on textual analyses of over 2,000 fatwas and juristic treatises collected from mosques across Europe and the United States as well as from on-line platforms, the book argues that there developed since the 1970s, in part dialectically, two contesting approaches to the religious law of Muslim minorities (the field of Islamic jurisprudence that addresses issues that are unique to Muslims living in majority non-Muslim societies): the wasati, led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi and his European Council for Fatwa and Research, and the salafi, led by Saudi-based juristic panels and individual jurists.^[6]
• Zionism in Arab Discourses (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 2016. (With Ofir Winter). According to WorldCat, the book is held in 16 libraries^[7] Exploring texts from the late 19th century to the “Arab Spring” on issues ranging from gender equality to democracy to the exact sciences, the book’s comparative analyses demonstrate an unfamiliar aspect of Arab Islamist and liberal conceptualizations of the Zionist project that regard it not only as fierce rival but also as a mentor on reforms needed in Arab societies.^[8]
• Scientific and Political Freedom in Islam: A Critical Reading of the Modernist-Apologetic School (Routledge, 2017).The book critically explores the modernist-apologetic approach to the relation between revelation and science and politics which, for over a century, has been a central part of Arab discourses on the future of Muslim societies. This approach introduced historical and theological narratives and interpretative mechanisms that contextualize reason and freedom in Islamic terms to argue that, unlike the case of Christianity, it is possible for Muslim societies to be technology and politically advanced without forfeiting revelation as an all-encompassing, legally-binding guide. The author shows that the modernist-apologetic approach has great potential to be a force for liberalization, but also possesses inherent limitations that render its theory on the relation between revelation and freedom self-contradictory.^[9]

Fiction

Shavit authored a best-selling novel, "The Dead Man" (in Hebrew, 2013). He is also an acclaimed author of five children books in Hebrew, two of which, "The Boy Who Read Minds" and "Like Magic", were selected on the National List of Israel's Ministry of Education. Shavit is also the author of Israel's best-selling Guide for University Students.

References

External links

• [https://english.tau.ac.il/profile/oriyasha Official website]
• Zionism in Arab Discourse – interview
• Muslim Integration in Europe: – [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqOhuAArm4 lecture]
• [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgQqD5Kqb_MmZC-zZQgXzFQ Islam and the West, Islam in the West], International conference in honor of the publication of Uriya Shavit's book

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