Professor Oliver Scharbrodt is Head of the Department of Academic Research at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS). His research explores modern Islamic reform, transnational Shiʿa communities, and Muslims in Europe.
Trained as a historian of modern Islamic thought, he began his research with the Egyptian reformer Muhammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) and the relationship between Islamic reform, Sufism, and other intellectual and religious currents of the nineteenth-century Muslim world. His research has since developed a major focus on contemporary Twelver Shiʿism, exploring religious authority, political mobilisation, communal identity, ritual practice, and transnational networks across Europe and the Middle East. His work combines historical and ethnographic approaches, drawing on Arabic and Persian sources and extensive fieldwork in Europe and the Middle East.
Professor Scharbrodt is the author and editor of numerous publications in Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, and has led several externally funded collaborative research programmes, including a European Research Council Consolidator Grant project. Before joining IIS, he held professorial appointments at the universities of Lund, Birmingham, and Chester.
Education and qualifications
PhD in Islamic Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2006)
MA in Oriental and African Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2000)
BA-equivalent degree in Islamic Studies, Comparative Religion and Philosophy, University of Bonn (1999)
