CONTRIBUTOR:

Diana Steigerwald

AFFILIATION:

TITLE:

Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT:

Religious Studies

INSTITUTION:

California State University, Long Beach

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Diana Steigerwald is an expert in the History of Islamic Thought especially theology, philosophy, Qur’anic exegesis, and mysticism. She has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from McGill University (Montreal). Her first two books analyzed the works of al-Shahrastani (1086-1153) who is recognized as an influential Muslim theologian and as an historian of religions. He was among the pioneers in using a scientific approach to the study of religions. Her second book is an annotated French translation of a work written in Persian (Majlis) by al‑Shahrastani, which reveals particularly the esoteric and mystical facets of his thought. L’Islam: les valeurs communes au judéo-christianisme is her third book which develops different themes of Muslim ethics such as: tolerance, brotherhood, faith, prayers, prophecy, justice, and death. For each topic, she highlighted several concepts that Islam shares with the Bible, different Jewish and Christian traditions, and apocryphal literature. Her work insists on the common principles of the faith shared by these three monotheistic religions. It shows the affinities of Muslim ethics with Judeo-Christian ethics. Dr. Steigerwald wrote two entries for the third edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam and over 37 articles in different scholarly journals and publications.