Telephone: (902) 494-3493
Email: atreiger@dal.ca
Office: Room 2183, Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Bldg.

Biography: I was raised in St Petersburg, Russia and began my university career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There I completed a BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies and an MA in Comparative Religion. My Master’s thesis offered an analysis of the medieval translation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s Mystical Theology into Arabic.
I received my PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Yale University. In my dissertation I explore the concept of ‘divine disclosure’ (human knowledge about God) in the writings of the influential Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. I have taught Arabic and Syriac at Yale and History of Christian Thought at Southern Connecticut State University.

Research interests: My current research involves work on early and classical Sufism, medieval Arabic philosophy, Christian asceticism and mysticism in the Syriac churches, and Christian literature in Arabic. I am interested in the history of transmission of philosophical, theological, ascetic, and mystical ideas from Late Antiquity to early Islam.