Teren Sevea

Teren Sevea is the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in South and Southeast Asia and received his PhD in History from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before joining HDS, he served as Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Sevea is the author of Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which received the 2022 Harry J.Benda Prize, awarded by the Association of Asian Studies. Sevea also co-edited Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2009). He is currently completing his second book entitled Singapore Islam: The Prophet’s Port and Sufism across the Oceans, and is working on his third monograph, provisionally entitled Animal Saints and Sinners: Lessons on Islam and Multispeciesism from the East. Sevea is the author of book chapters and journal articles pertaining to Indian Ocean networks, Sufi textual traditions, Islamic erotology, Islamic third worldism, and the socioeconomic significance of spirits, that have been published in journals such as Third World Quarterly, Modern Asian Studies, The Indian Economic and Social History Review and Journal of Sufi Studies. In addition to this, he is a coordinator of a multimedia project entitled “The Lighthouses of God: Mapping Sanctity Across the Indian Ocean,” which investigates the evolving landscapes of Indian Ocean Islam through photography, film, and GIS technology.