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Asma Sayeed, assistant professor of religious studies, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Syria next year.
The grant will allow her to conduct archival research at the Al-Assad Library in Damascus from January to June of 2010.
Sayeed’s research focuses on a community of scholars in medieval Damascus that had an unusually high rate of participation by female religious scholars. “These women attended classes, gave lectures on well-known works of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, and were held in high esteem by Muslims in major urban areas throughout the central Islamic lands,” she says.
Sayeed will be the first scholar to conduct a detailed study of these women. She will search for archival records of their daily activities and educational curricula and the extent of their scholarly influence. Working from those records, Sayeed plans to write about the lives of some of these women.
“I am hopeful that my research will contribute significantly to our knowledge of women’s education in Islamic history and to a better understanding of gender relations in classical Islam. I also hope that my research will draw attention to the value of archival sources in conducting research on Muslim women in the pre-modern periods,” she says.
Sayeed has published several journal and encyclopedia articles on Muslim women’s religious education in early and classical Islamic history. She is writing a book that examines women’s transmission of religious knowledge in the first 10 centuries of Islamic history.
“I look forward to incorporating insights from my research into my teaching when I return to Lafayette,” Sayeed says. “I am confident that my firsthand experience of living and conducting research in Damascus will enrich my ability to teach about women’s religious experiences in different places and periods of Islamic history. I also hope to inspire students to study abroad and to experience for themselves the diversity of educational venues that are open to them throughout their undergraduate careers.”