Christopher Melchert

Christopher Melchert is an American professor and scholar of Islam, specialising in Islamic movements and institutions, especially during the ninth and tenth centuries. A prolific author, he is professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Oxford's Oriental Institute, and is a Fellow in Arabic at Pembroke College, Oxford.

Melchert received a PhD in History (1992) from the University of Pennsylvania. His thesis was later published as a book, titled The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, with Brill Publishers, Leiden. Melchert more recently published a book on Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the Sunni hadith-scholar and jurist.

Having written about whether women can be prayer leaders according to the early Sunni and Shii jurists, he is one of the few expert historians who has written authoritatively on the question.

Selected publications

The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th-10th Centuries C.E. (Studies in Islamic law and society, v. 4). Leiden: Brill, 1997. Reviewed by W. B. Hallaq in International Journal of Middle East Studies 31, no. 2, (1999): 278–280 Reviewed by P. Sanders in American Journal of Legal History 43, Part 1 (1999): 98 Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006 and 2012. (in 116 World Cat libraries) Before Sufism: Early Islamic Renunciant Piety (De Gruyter, 2020)

Academia The formation of the Sunni schools of law, ninth–tenth centuries AD. 1992 Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania Religious Policies of the Caliphs from al-Mutawakkil to al-Muqtadir, AH 232-295/AD 847-908, in Islamic Law and Society, 1996 - Brill The transition from asceticism to mysticism at the middle of the ninth century AD, in Studia Islamica, 1996 - JSTOR The adversaries of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in Arabica, 1997 - Springer Islamic law, in Oklahoma City University Law Review, 1998 - HeinOnline How Hanafism Came to Originate in Kufa and Traditionalism in Medina, in Islamic Law and Society, 1999 - Brill Ibn Mujāhid and the establishment of seven Qur'anic readings, in Studia Islamica, 2000 - JSTOR Traditionist-jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law, in Islamic Law and Society, 2001 - Brill The Ḥanābila and the Early Sufis, in Arabica, 2001 - JSTOR Sufis and competing movements in Nishapur, in Iran, 2001 - JSTOR Various additional papers.