Merlin Swartz (July 31, 1933 – February 21, 2022) was an American scholar of religion. Swartz attended

Eastern Mennonite University Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) is a private Mennonite university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The university also operates a satellite campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which primarily caters to working adults. EMU's bachelor-degree holders ...

(BA, 1955),

Goshen College Goshen College is a Private college, private Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana. It was founded in 1894 as the Elkhart Institute of Science, Industry and the Arts, ...

(BD, 1960), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(PhD, 1967). He was Professor Emeritus of Religion (Islamic Studies) at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, having taught previously at the

American University in Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, au ...

and Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His research and teaching focused primarily on the religious and intellectual history of medieval Islam.

Books

*Ibn al-Jawzi, ''Kitab al-Qussas wa'l-Mudhakkirin'' (tr., intro.) (Institut de Lettres Orientales, Beirut 1971). *''A Seventh-Century Sunni Creed: The 'Aqida Wasitiya of Ibn Taymiya'' (Mouton 1974). *''Studies on Islam'' (Oxford 1981). *''Humaniora Islamica'', co-editor (Mouton 1973-1974). *''A Medieval Critique of Anthropomorphism: Ibn al-Jawzi's Kitab Akhbar as-Sifat: A Critical Edition of the Arabic Text with Translation, Introduction and Notes'' (E.J. Brill, 2002).

References

Boston University ProfileObituary
1933 births 2022 deaths Academic staff of the American University of Beirut Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Boston University faculty {{US-theologian-stub