Walker, Paul E. 1941–

(Paul Ernest Walker)

PERSONAL:

Born 1941, in Salt Lake City, UT; son of Don D. and Marjorie F. Walker; married Karen L. Wilson; children: Adam, Katrina, Jeremy. Education: University of Utah, B.A., 1964; American University in Cairo, M.A., 1966; doctoral study at Harvard University, 1966-67; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chicago, IL. E-mail—pwalker@midway.uchicago.edu.

CAREER:

Teacher at a private school in Milton, MA, 1967-68; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, historian at National Museum of History and Technology, 1973-76; American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo, director, 1976-80, executive director, 1980-86; McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, associate professor at Institute of Islamic Studies, 1987-90; independent scholar, 1990-93; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, visiting associate professor, 1993-94, visiting professor of Islamic studies, 1997; independent scholar, 1994—. Columbia University, part-time lecturer, 1981-86; McGill University, visiting assistant professor, 1984-86; University of Chicago, visiting scholar at Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1998—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1999-2000, 2004; Guggenheim fellow, 2001-02.

WRITINGS:

Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

The Wellsprings of Wisdom, University of Utah Press (Salt Lake City, UT), 1994.

Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 1996.

An Ismaili Heresiography: The "Bab al-Shaytan" from Abu Tammam's Kitab al-Shajara, E.J. Brill (Leiden, Netherlands), 1998.

Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani: Ismaili Thought in the Age of al-Hakim, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Wilferd Madelung) The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi'i Witness, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 2000.

(Translator) Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of Belief: Kitab al-irshad ila qawati'al-adilla fi usul ali'tiqad, Garnet Publishing (Reading, England), 2000.

Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its Sources, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Ayman Fuad Sayyid and Maurice A. Pomerantz) The Fatimids and Their Successors in Yaman: The History of an Islamic Community (bilingual in English and Arabic), I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 2002.

Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its Sources, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 2002.

Fatimid History and Ismaili Doctrine, Ashgate Publishing (Burlington, VT), 2008.

Work represented in anthologies and reference books, including Studies in Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern, edited by R. Baine Harris, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 1992; The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, edited by C. Butterworth, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1992; and Religion and Practical Reason: New Essays in the Comparative Philosophy of Religion, edited by Frank Reynolds and David Tracy, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 1994. Contributor of about fifty articles and reviews to Islamic studies and religious studies journals. Islamic Near East Editor, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1998—.

Some of Walker's writings have been published in Persian.