Notes on Contributors
Vali Abdi
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Religions and Mysticism at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He teaches courses on the history of Christianity and Judaism, and Islamic denominations. His publications include “Jacobite explanation of the Trinity in the context of Muʿtazilite theology: Abu Raʾita al-Takriti,” “Eirini Avraam Artemi, al-Ghazali’s reading of the fourth Gospel,” and “The appearance of the Lord in the clouds in Shiʿi and Sufi writings,” co-authored with Ali Ashraf Emami. His fields of interest are Christian-Muslim relations, ancient Christianity, and Greek language.
Abbas Aghdassi
serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Civilization of Muslim Societies at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He teaches courses on Methods and Methodologies in Islamic Studies, Contemporary Muslim World, and Islam and/in the West. His publications include Tashayyuʿ dar Āmrīkā (Kavīr, 2020), Perspectives on Academic Persian (Springer, 2021), and New Methods in the Study of Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). He also curates a page with Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO): Spotlight in Iranian and Persian Studies. His fields of interest include methods in Islamic studies, Muslim minorities, academic Persian, bibliography and bibliometrics, and (humanizing) Orientalism.
Elisabeth Arweck
is the Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion and Honorary Associate Professor in Education Studies at the University of Warwick. As Principal Research Fellow at the University of Warwick (until June 2021), her ethnographic research focused on values education programmes devised by Hindu-inspired religious movements, and on religious socialisation and education; young people and religion; mixed-faith families; education and religion, and religious diversity. Apart from numerous articles, her publications include Attitudes to Religious Diversity: Young People’s Perspectives (editor and contributor, Routledge 2017), Young People and the Diversity of (Non)Religious Identities in International Perspective (co-edited with Heather Shipley, Springer 2019), Education about Religions and Worldviews (co-edited with Anna Halafoff and Donald Boisvert, Routledge 2016), Religion, Education and Society (co-edited with Robert Jackson, Routledge 2014), Religion and Knowledge (co-edited with Mathew Guest, Ashgate 2012), and Researching New Religious Movements in the West (Routledge 2006).
Hassan Basafa
is an Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Neyshabur, Iran. He teaches courses on Field method in Archaeology, Urbanization, and Early Historical Period in the East of Iran. His major publications include “Bronze (Urbanization) and Iron Age periods in East Iran and central Asia.” He is the author of The Archaeology of Khorasan in the Bronze Age (Urbanization), in Persian. His fields of interest are Bronze and Iron Age in Eastern Iran and central Asia. Eight archaeological sites in Khorasan, including Tigh-e Meohreh, Shahrak-Firouze, Kalate-Shuri in Neyshabur Plain, and Chenaran site in Mashhad plain have already been excavated by him in 16 archaeological seasons.
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor
is Associate Professor in the Sociology of Islam at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK. She is Chair (2020–2023) of the Muslims in Britain Research Network (MBRN). As a feminist sociologist of religion, she interrogates the power dynamics within knowledge production and the implications of the processes and systems of knowledge on society as a whole. Her publications include Muslim Women in Britain: Demystifying the Muslimah (Routledge 2012), Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts (Bloomsbury 2013), Islamic Education in Britain: New Pluralist Paradigms (Bloomsbury 2015), Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion (Bloomsbury 2015) and Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education (OUP 2020). She led the first research exploration of the experiences of children of Muslim-heritage in the care system in Britain and is currently PI for the Nuffield-funded Expressions of Self project that is examining children and young people’s experiences of minoritised ethnic and religious identity.
Morteza Daneshyar
is Assistant professor in the Department of History and Civilization of Muslim Nations at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He teaches courses on the History and Islamic Civilization in Khorasan, Islam Facing the West and Colonialism, and Islam in the Contemporary World. His publications include: “Niẓām al-Mulk’s Siyar al-Mulūk: The Reasons for Its Inaccuracies and Fabrications,” “Famine in Khorasan in 1288 AH: background, process and economic consequences,” “The Term of Hawza ʿIlmiyya: A History of its Appearance and the Semantic Evolution.” His fields of interest are the history of Khorasan, Persian historiography, and the Qājār Iran.
Hessam Habibi Doroh
is researcher and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences, FH Campus Wien, Section Applied Political Science. He teaches courses on International Relations, intercultural and interreligious studies. He is the author of upcoming monograph: Iranian Sunnis and the Islamic Republic. His field of interest are: culture and society in contemporary Iran, and International Relations of the Middle East.
Sevde Düzgüner
Phd, is an associate professor at Marmara University in İstanbul. She had been to Tokyo Camii and Diyanet Turkish Cultural Center in Japan in 2020 and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the United States in 2013 as a visiting scholar, the latter being granted by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK). She has published books and articles on spirituality/religiosity, social psychology of religion, positive psychology.
Seyyed Mohammad Fazlhashemi
is a professor of Islamic theology and philosophy at the Department of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden. Fazlhashemi’s research interests concern theological and philosophical ideas during the classical era of Islam, the so-called intermediate period and modern times. He has a particular interest in political traditions of ideas with links to Islamic theology, philosophy and legal/judicial interpretations. Previously he was professor of the history of ideas at Umeå University, Sweden. His English publications include, “Radicalization and Takfirism,” “A Book for Children, Manual in Court Intrigues or Advice for Ethical Government: Appelboom’s Swedish Translation of Kalila and Dimna,” “Internal Critique in Muslim Context,” “The Parallel Power System as an Alternative to Revolution and Passivity,” “Faith-Based Welfare Practice: Reflections from the Perspective of Islamic Theology,” “Justifying political decisions through theological arguments,” and Shīʿite Salafism? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
Leslie J. Francis
is Professor of Religions, Psychology and Education at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, England and Professor Emeritus of Religions and Psychology at the University of Warwick, England. He received his PhD and ScD from the University of Cambridge, his DD from the University of Oxford, and his DLitt from the University of Wales. His recent books include Lessons in Spiritual Development (2017), Religion and Education: The Voices of Young People in Ireland (2019), Personality, Religion, and Leadership (2020), A New Lease of Life? Anglican Clergy Reflect on Retirement (2020), and The Science of congregation studies (2021).
Hernán Furman
is Teaching Assistant in Health Psychology at the University of Flores, Argentina. He studies the relationship between Purpose in Life and other salutogenic variables.
Abdolrahim Ghanavat
is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Civilizations of Muslim Nations at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He teaches the early history of Islam, historical texts, and research methods in history. He is the author of several books, including most recently, Khātūn-i Bukhārā (Dānishnigār, 2021). Some of his Persian papers are “‘Khorasan Conquests’ Written by Madaeni; An Ancient Book on Khorasan History,” “Rawzah al-Shuhada: from Spurious narratives to creating impression,” and “A study of Nowruznameh in the Islamic era (up to the ninth century AH).”
John M. Haley
is Research Fellow at the St Mary’s Centre Wales. Serving as an active Methodist minister in circuit ministry, he received his PhD from the University of Wales. His research engages with the beliefs, attitudes, practices and work-related psychological wellbeing of serving Methodist ministers. His major study. British Methodism: What circuit ministers really think was published in 2006. Recent articles have been published in Holiness: An international journal of Wesleyan theology and Journal of Religion and Health.
Alison Halford
is an early career academic and Sociologist of Religion. She is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling, Coventry University.Her work focuses on lived religion, feminist methodology, and gender and minority religions. Publications include contributions to the Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender (2021), Palgrave Handbook of Global Mormonism (2021), and with Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor has co-authored numerous publications on Islam, young people and lived experiences of religion. For the past four years, Alison has been a consultation panel member on Mormon women’s historical and contemporary narratives in a global context, BYU Maxwell Institute, Utah, USA. In 2019, the Centre for Global Mormon Studies, Claremont University, USA awarded her a grant to collect oral histories from Mormon women in Greece, Sweden, and the UK. She has experience around translating complex research findings into real-life contexts to improve stakeholder understanding and engagement with research.
Douglas L. Hall
is Research Fellow at the St Mary’s Centre Wales. A retired director of a market research company, he has an MSc in Business Management. His research engages with the analysis of quantitative data relevant to the psychology of religion. Recent articles have been published in Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (2018), Mental Health, Religion and Culture (2019, 2021), and Rural Theology (2022).
Gill S. Hall
is Research Fellow at the St Mary’s Centre Wales. A retired Church of England priest, she received her PhD from Glyndŵr University, Wrexham, Wales. Her research engages with Celtic Christianity and psychological type. Recent articles have been published in Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (2018), Mental Health, Religion and Culture (2019, 2021), and Rural Theology (2022).
Ralph W. Hood Jr
is professor of Psychology Professorship at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and UT Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor. He is a past president of division 36 of the American Psychological Association and a recipient of its’ William James award for research in the psychology of religion. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Brill series, Psychology and Religion.
Robabeh Jafarpour
is a Phd Candidate in the Department of History and Civilization of Muslim Societies at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Her publications include “Al-shafī fī ṭib” in Dāyiratul Maʿārif-i Pizishkī-yi Irān va Islām, “The image of Iranians in Ibn Khaldun’s thought,” and “Naqd va barrisī-yi kitāb Islām dar sāl-i 250: muṭāliʿātī dar yādbūdi Juynboll.” She is interested in the history of the Islamic sects, History of women in Islamic civilization, Muslim historiography, and the origin of Islam.
Michael B. Kitchens
Phd, is a Professor of Psychology at Lebanon Valley College. His research interests are in the areas of existential psychology and the psychology of religion, particularly as those areas intersect with self and identity.
Gareth Longden
Phd, is the Academic Registrar at St Padarn’s Institute, Wales, UK and an Honorary Lecturer at Cardiff University. His research interests include organised non-religion in Britain and individual differences in religious and non-religious communities. He is Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Empirical Theology.
Ursula McKenna
is Senior Research Fellow within the World Religions and Education Research Unit at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln. Her research engages with both qualitative and quantitative methods, and she has published widely as part of a research group concerned with religion, psychology, and education. Recent articles include, ‘Adapting to and assessing online worship: Listening to rural Church of England lay people’ (Rural Theology, 2022).
Mehdi Mousavinia
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Neyshabur, Iran. He teaches courses on Historical Archaeology, Early Islamic Archaeology, and Zoroastrian History. His publications include “Ancient Arms Race: Antiquity’s Largest Fortresses and Sasanian Military Networks of Northern Iran,” “Evolution of Architectural Structure of Towers of Silence from Sassanid to Late Islamic Period,” “Newly-found Evidence of Sasanian Simple Pit Burial at Qaleh Iraj, Pishva, Iran,” “Largest Ancient Fortress of South-West Asia and the Western World? Recent Fieldwork at Sasanian Qaleh Iraj at Pishva,” “Human remains from Qaleh Iraj, Iran, 2016,” and “Human remains from Tepe Qaleh Khalachan, Iran, 2016.” His fields of interest are Sasanian fortifications, burial customs and Zoroastrian studies.
Eleanor Nesbitt
is Professor Emeritus (Religions and Education) at the University of Warwick and a founder member of Punjab Research Group. Her ethnographic research has focused on the religious socialisation of religiously diverse young people and on Hindu-related values education programmes. Her publications include Interfaith Pilgrims (Quaker Books, 2003), Sikhism A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2nd edn 2016), Intercultural Education: Ethnographic and Religious Approaches (Sussex Academic Press rep. 2010) and Sikh: Two Centuries of Western Women’s Art and Writing (Kashi House forthcoming 2022). She co-authored (with Robert Jackson) Hindu Children in Britain (Trentham Books, 1993). Eleanor is co-editor of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Sikhism. In 2021 she received a lifetime achievement award from the University of California, Riverside for her ‘distinguished contribution to the Punjab Research Group in the UK to promote Sikh and Punjab Studies’.
Russell Phillips
Phd, is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg in Pennsylvania (USA). He teaches undergraduate courses in clinical and applied psychology. Phillips’ current research interest concern religious fundamentalism. He has published peer reviewed journal articles on fundamentalism, sanctification, religious coping, and psychospiritual interventions.
Francesco Rigoli
Phd, is a senior lecturer at the Department of Psychology at City, University of London (UK). His current research focuses on applying cognitive and computational psychology research to explore topics in cultural psychology, such as religion, ideology, values, and ethics.
Atefeh Ranjbardarestani
was born in Nushahr, Iran. She is a Phd candidate at Tehran University, and majors in Islamic Theology and Philosophy. She wrote several papers in Persian on Islamic Logic, including “The Discussion between Abū Bishr Mattā and Abū Saʿīd Sirāfī on Grammar in the Cradle of History.” Her areas of interest include the conflict between practical and theoretical reasoning, and ethics.
Susan B. Ridgely
is Professor in the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She is the author of Practicing What the Doctor Preached: At Home with Focus on the Family (Oxford University Press, 2016) and When I was a Child: Children’s Interpretations of First Communion (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). She also edited two volumes on theories and methods for including children in the academic study of religion: The Study of Children in Religions: A Methods Handbook (NYU, 2011) and The Bloomsbury Reader in Childhood and Religion (Bloomsbury, 2017), which she edited with Anna Strhan and Stephen Parker. Her current project uses archival research and oral histories to explore the generational consequences of the desegregation of the diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina in 1953.
Mandy Robbins
PhD, FHEA, CPsychol, is Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Social and Life Science at Wrexham Glyndŵr University. Her research interests include individual differences in religion, young people and human rights, and work-related psychological health. She is one of the editors of the Journal of Empirical Theology and Series Editor for Studies in Theology and Religion (Brill).
Ariane Sadjed
is a Senior Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Iranian Studies. She received her doctorate in cultural studies from Humboldt University of Berlin. She is the author of Shopping for Freedom in the Islamic Republic (2012, in German) and Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation (2015). She has recently published two peer-reviewed articles about the Jewish communities from Mashhad and is currently editing a Special Issue on Persianate Jewish History for the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. Dr. Sadjed is leading two research projects: “Narratives of Being Jewish in Iran,” which deals with the history of Jewish life in Iran and how it is remembered, the other on Jewish and Muslim communities in Austria.
Hamidreza Sanaei
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Civilization of Muslim Nations at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He teaches courses on socio-political thought in the Islamic world, and History and Civilization in the East of the Islamic Nation. His publications include Aʿyān-i Nīshābūr, a Persian translation of The Patricians of Nishapur by Richard Bulliet. He has published more than 20 papers including, “Ṣanāyiʿi ʿumdiyi Nīshābūr dar Sadihāyi 3 tā 6 A.H. Bar Pāyi-yi Dādihāyi Bāstānshinākhtī va Manābiʿi Maktūb,” “Rāhhāyi īyālāt gharbi Khurāsān Bi Sūyi Nīshābūr Muqārin-i Vurūd-i Imām Rizā,” and “Riḥliyi Muḥaddithān-i Nīshābūr dar Sadihāyi 3–6 A.H. va Payvand-i ān Bā Maʿīshat-i ānān.” His fields of interest are studies of Khurāsān, Māvarāʾ Nahr, and especially Nīshābūr.
Mohsen Sharfaei
is a researcher in the Department of Religion Studies at the Research Foundation of Astan Quds Razavi in Mashhad, Iran. He teaches courses on history of Sufism, mystical texts, and history of Judaism and Christianity. He is the author of four books, including Descriptive Bibliography of Religions Volume 2: Judaism; Descriptive Bibliography of Religions Volume 4: Religions of Ancient Iran; History of Body in Litrature (chapter 8); Religions of Khorasan in Imam Riza’s era. He is also one of the contributors to the Encyclopaedia Islamica and Descriptive Dictionary of Iranian Islamic Written Works. His fields of interest are history of Islamic mysticism, and comparative studies of religions.
Greg Smith
is an Associate Research Fellow of the William Temple Foundation. He has worked for over forty years in urban mission, community development and social research in London and Preston. He has published extensively on religion in the inner city, faith involvement in urban regeneration, and urban theology. The research reported here was carried out while he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Institutional Studies at the University of East London and was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. From 2011 to 2016 he also worked for the Evangelical Alliance, managing the 21st Century Evangelicals research programme and since retirement continued to analyse and publish academic papers based on the data. For more on his work and publications see his personal web page http://gregsmith.synthasite.com/.
Hugo Simkin
Phd, is Assistant Professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Assistant Researcher at the National Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina, Associate Editor of the PSOCIAL journal, and Visiting Professor at the Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Daniel Travis
is a researcher at the University J. F. Kennedy, Argentina. His research interests include religion and spirituality, and their relationship to prosocial behavior and intergroup processes.
Andrew Village
is Professor of Practical and Empirical Theology at York St John University. He researches in the psychology of religion as well as congregational and clergy studies. His recent books include Encountering the Bible (2016, SCM) and The Church of England in the First Decade of the 21st Century: Findings from the Church Times Surveys (2018, Palgrave Macmillan).
İbrahim Yildirm. M.A.
is a research assistant at Osmaniye Korkut Ata University in Osmaniye. He received his masters’ degree from Marmara University in İstanbul in 2018 and subsequently started a Phd program at Çukurova University in Adana. He took part in the Spiritual Counseling and Guidance Research Project granted by the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkish Republic in 2020. He has published a book and articles on radicalism, social psychology of religion, religious life, and minimalist lifestyle.
Mahmood Zeraatpisheh
was born in Shiraz, Iran. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Islamic Philosophy at the University of Birjand, Iran. His has majored in Islamic theology and philosophy. He has published several books and papers in Persian, including “Truthiness of God in Avicenna’s View and Its Influence on the Theory of Unity of Existence in Mulla Sadra” and “The Mulla Sadra’s Distinct Solution from Ibn Sina’s on Resolving Co-existence of Two Categories in Mental Existence and Its Efficiency.” His areas of expertise include the anti-philosophical movements in the Islamic world.