Uriya Shavit


Uriya Shavit is an Israeli scholar of Islamic law, theology and politics. Currently, Shavit is the head of both The Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and of The Religious Studies Program at Tel Aviv University.Since 2014, he has served as a Full professor of Islamic Studies at Tel Aviv University. In addition to his work as a scholar, Shavit is a former journalist and the author of a best-selling novel and five books for young readers.

Research

Shavit is a specialist in the study of the development of fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-Muslima – the field in Islamic jurisprudence that deals with issues pertaining to Muslim minorities in non-Islamic countries. His scholarly publications, which are largely based on primary source material collected in mosques from across Europe and the United States, suggest that two main contesting doctrines have developed in this field – the Wasati and the Salafi doctrines. Shavit argues that the notion of "migrants as missionaries" has facilitated pragmatic religious decisions that promote Muslim integration in non-Muslim majority societies. In field studies, conducted mainly in Germany, England and Iceland, he examined the creative ways in which Muslim communities accept, reject and mitigate fatwas.
Shavit has also written on modern Islamic political thought. His studies analyze Islamist works that attempt to reconcile political thought based on traditional revelation with liberal democracy. He argues, for example, that the Muslim Brothers have intentionally avoided making a decision on whether the ultimate arbitrators on constitutional matters in an Islamic democracy should be unelected theologians. His studies also examined the role the concepts of Western "cultural imperialism" and decline play in modern Islamist thought. Shavit has also analyzed Arab writings on Zionism, suggesting that since the late 19th century, the Zionist project has played the dual role of an enemy and a role model among both Arab Islamists and liberals.
Shavit's studies on political violence in Islam argue that the Muslim Brothers accepted juristic notions that rendered a violent revolution legitimate only to the extent that its success is assured.
Several of his works examined through field studies how advanced media technologies impact migrants, arguing that the internet and satellite television allow, for the first time in history, a separation between affinity to a territory and a sense of belonging to an imagined community. He introduced the ideal-type of "passive transnational" to describe one result of this development. Shavit demonstrated the failure of Islamic web portals and satellite channels to create a global imagined Muslim nation.
In his study on the theory of evolution in Arab thought, Shavit argues that through the impact of American fundamentalists, Islamists shifted from critically legitimizing Darwinism in the early 20th century, to fiercely attacking it by the end of the century.

Journalism

Between 1997 and 2008, Shavit was a columnist, senior writer, international affairs analyst and editor for Haaretz. He later served as the editor-in-chief of the weekend magazines of Maariv and Makor Rishon, and as a literary critic for Yediot Ahronot. Today, he frequently comments on current Middle Eastern Affairs on Israeli national television.

Books in English

Shavit authored a best-selling novel, "The Dead Man," in Hebrew in 2013.
He also wrote five children books in Hebrew, two of which, "The Boy Who Read Minds" and "Like Magic", were selected on the National List of Israel's Ministry of Education. Shavit is also the author of Israel's best-selling Guide for University Students.