Ze'ev Maghen

Ze’ev Maghen (PhD. Columbia University, 1997) is Professor of Arabic and Islamic History and former Chairman of the Department of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as the creator of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at the Shalem College in Jerusalem. He lectures regularly at Reichman University.

Maghen’s areas of expertise include Revolutionary Iran, Islamism, the Sunni-Shii schism, Qur’anic Exegesis and Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence. He has written two academic books – Virtues of the Flesh: Purity and Sexuality in Islamic Discourse (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005), and After Hardship Cometh Ease: Classical Muslim Attitudes to Judaism and Jewish Law (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006); as well as numerous articles in peer reviewed journals on these subjects. His essay on “Eradicating the Little Satan: Why Iran should be taken at its word” was the lead article in Commentary Magazine (January 2009) and his lengthy treatment of “Shiite Messianism and Iranian Foreign Policy” was the lead article in the prestigious Middle East Journal (Spring, 2008).

Professor has written on Jewish and Zionist subjects, as well, and his essay “John Lennon and the Jews” – published in six languages – has been published as a full length book (John Lennon and the Jews: A Philosophical Rampage, New York: Toby Press, 2014).

Maghen speaks, reads and writes Arabic, Persian, Russian, English, Hebrew and Yiddish. He lectures regularly in the Israel Defense Forces, as well as at universities and in other frameworks in the United States, Europe, Turkey, the Arab World, Russia, Ukraine, India and Latin America. He lives with his wife and four children in Hod HaSharon. He served in the Tank Corps of the IDF until his discharge from the reserves in 2005. He was the 1984 International Frisbee Golf Champion (Junior Division).