I became a fellow of New College in 2023, having previously been a fellow of St Cross. I joined the college in order to lead the creation of a new undergraduate programme in Arabic, which had been discontinued as a subject for many years despite a long and distinguished history. My fellowship is named for D.S. Margoliouth, a former student and fellow of New College, who was perhaps the greatest scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies in Britain in the first part of the twentieth century.

I grew up outside New York City in northern New Jersey and completed my undergraduate and graduate education at Princeton (where I had the good fortune to study under Peter Brown, a former student and honorary fellow of New College). In between, I studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Prior to taking up my position in Oxford, I was a research fellow of St John’s College in Cambridge.

Teaching

Most of my undergraduate teaching is for the BA in Arabic. My papers explore the history of the Middle East and neighbouring areas in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, from the empires of the pre-Islamic period until the emergence of the Ottomans. Some papers are broad and introductory, while others are highly specialized, reflecting my research interests. My favourite part of teaching is reading primary sources in the original language, above all, Arabic. 

Most of my postgraduate teaching is for the master’s degrees in Islamic Studies and History as well as Late Antique and Byzantine Studies. I also supervise doctoral students and am always glad to hear from prospective applicants who work in my fields of interest. 

Research

I work on the history of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, focusing on North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. I am especially interested in relations between Muslims and non-Muslims (including Christians and Zoroastrians), religious conversion, Islamic sectarianism, and the connected histories of the Umayyad, ʿAbbasid, and Byzantine empires. I like to draw on sources in multiple languages as well as archaeology and material culture. 
I am currently writing a new book which explores the history of the early Islamic empire as seen through its mountainous peripheries, including North Africa, Syria, and Iran. The book focuses on the relationship between geography, religious change, and imperial power, highlighting the history of Christian, Zoroastrian, and Muslim communities in rugged, highland areas.

Major publications

Among the Ruins: Syria Past and Present (Hurst – Oxford University Press, 2014)

Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2018)

Conversion to Islam in the Pre-Modern Age: A Sourcebook (University of California Press, 2020, co-editor)

The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam: Chapters 11-12 of the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār by Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād (Liverpool University Press, Translated Texts for Historians, 2023)

Christians in Middle Eastern History: Strangers No More (Edinburgh University Press, 2026, co-edited with J-P. Ghobrial, M. Reynolds, and J. Tannous)