Adam Gaiser

Professor of Religion
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Contact Information

History and Ethnography of Religions
Faculty
Office Location
313 Dodd Hall
Email
agaiser@fsu.edu
Office Hours

By appointment

Adam Gaiser (Ph.D. ’05, University of Virginia, history of religions) teaches courses in Islamic studies. His research focuses on the development of early Kharijites and Ibadiyya, and on medieval Muslim sectarianism in general. Gaiser also teaches courses on Shi‘ism, Islam in North America, Islamic Law, the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an. His current research project is "An Introduction to Ibadi Islam" (contracted with Cambridge University Press). The work provides a scholarly and comprehensive introduction to Ibadism and the Ibadiyya, a group of Muslims who are neither Sunni nor Shiʽi, and who hail from the earliest period of Islamic history. 

Gaiser is currently accepting graduate students (M.A. and Ph.D.) interested in pursuing research topics in Islamic studies.

Research Interests

Early Islamic Sectarianism
The Kharijites and Ibadiyya
Early Islamic history and historiography
Guest Edited Journal Issue
  • (with Miriam Ali de Unzaga) “Facets of Exchange between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula,” The Journal of North African Studies (Spain-North African Project Special Issue), 19/1.
Articles 
  • “Ballaghanā 'an an-Nabī: Early Ibāḍī understandings of Sunna and Siyar, Āthār and Nasab.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 83 (2020): 437-448.
  • (with James Riggan). “Stamps of the Fallen (Part 1): On Martyrs, Nations, and Postage Stamps.” Mizān: Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Muslim Societies and Civilizations (2017): 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.mizanproject.org/stamps-of-the-fallen-part-1/.
  • (with James Riggan). “Stamps of the Fallen (Part 2): Martyrs on the Postage Stamps of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Mizān: Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Muslim Societies and Civilizations (2017): 1-9. Retrieved from http://www.mizanproject.org/stamps-of-the-fallen-part-2/.
  • “A Narrative Identity Approach to Islamic Sectarianism,” in Nader Hashemi, & Danny Postel (Eds.), Sectarianization: Mapping the Politics of the New Middle East (pp. 61-75). London: Hurst, 2017.
  • “Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa,” in Medieval Encounters (Spain North-Africa Project Special Issue), 19 (2013): 41-70.
  • “The Kharijites in Contemporary Scholarship,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online, 35 (2013).
  • “What do we Learn about the Early Khārijites and Ibāḍiyya from their Coins?” in Journal of the American Oriental Society 103/2 (2011): 167-187.
  • “The Ibāḍī ‘Stages of Religion’ Re-examined: Tracing the History of the Masālik al-Dīn,” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 73/2 (2010): 207-22.
  • “Source-Critical Methodologies in Recent Scholarship on the Khārijites,” in History Compass 7/5 (2009): 1376-90.
  • “Satan’s Seven Specious Arguments: al-Shahrastānī’s Kitāb al-Milal wa’l-Nihal in an Ismā‘īlī Context,” in Journal of Islamic Studies 19/2 (2008): 178-195

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