About

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His fields of study include the modern Middle East, Muslim South Asia, intellectual and cultural history, religion, and history. He is associated with the American Culture department and the Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies, as well as the Center for South Asian Studies and Arab and Muslim American Studies. His office is located at 2527 Haven Hall, and he can be reached via email or phone at 734.763.1460. His academic work focuses on the history and culture of the Middle East and South Asia, contributing to the understanding of these regions through his research and teaching.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• History
• Law
• World Wide Web
• Ancient history
• Philosophy
• Classics
• Archaeology

Selected publications

• The Taliban, Women and the Hegelian Private Sphere

  2025-01-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Iraq

  2025-10-01

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Professor Juan Cole delivered the ISIM Annual Lecture on 1 December 2005 at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. He argued that clerically-led Shiism in Iraq is undergoing a sort of reformation, in which leading figures are attempting to reconcile the principles of Islam with those of the Enlightenment. The current attempt by ayatollahs to engage with the ideals of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is among the more thoroughgoing and institutionally promising in modern history. This article is an adjusted version of his lecture.1

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sufi Commentaries on a Quranic Peace Verse

  Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence · 2024-08-28

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Qur’ān 41:33–35 instructs that believers should return the greater or greatest good for acts of evil, and the commentators recognize that it is a counsel to nonviolence on the part of individuals. It is one of a series of peace verses in the Muslim scripture. The place of these ethical commandments in Muslim traditions has been little studied in the Western academy. This article focuses on prominent thinkers of Nishapur and Shiraz who laid the foundations for classical Sufism. The indigenous Muslim roots of Sufism and its tie to formal Islamic texts are increasingly underlined by scholars. All three of the figures on which we concentrate authored substantial commentaries on the Qur’ān, and all three found this passage important for their ethical frameworks. For medieval Sufi thinkers Qur’ān 41:33–35 opened up the possibility of peace and reconciliation after conflict in society, whether within Sufi study circles or in wider urban environments, including both elite strata and that of urban artisans and youth.

  PublisherDOI

• Terraforming Yemen: Geoeconomic imperialism, the UAE and the southern secessionists

  Journal of Gulf studies. · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article argues that the intervention in Yemen (2015–present) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) exemplified a new phenomenon, of postmodern small-state imperialism enabled by globalized, extra-European capital flows. The particular tactic deployed for these imperial purposes was terraforming, which had a tangible effect on the country’s geopolitical map. It involved a complex web of ground troops, support for surrogates and mercenaries, economic investments, and strategic concentration on securing the entire Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden littoral. This effort had the positive goal of securing westward oil exports by the UAE and of creating a marine security environment conducive to Emirati administration of the port of Aden. Especially post-2019, it is argued, the UAE did not merely opportunistically pursue its STC policy under the wings of Saudi Arabia but rather confronted its larger partner, bombing Saudi proxies at key moments and acting more like a rival than a bandwagoning ally. This Emirati enterprise was shaped by the interests of Abu Dhabi and its local proxies rather than by US or European imperialism, though it sufficiently accorded with US policy to receive no pushback from Washington.

  PublisherDOI

• China and Syria as an “Ideological Exception”?

  Syracuse University Press eBooks · 2023-02-28

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Robā'īyāt of Omar Khayyām

  2023-04-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In his chapter, “Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām,” Juan Cole discusses Omarian poetry, that is, the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyām (d.1131) throughout the history of classical Persian poetry. However, Cole discusses the strong possibility that Khayyām is a frame author and that Omarian poetry is not poetry written by him but rather a genre of poetry written during the centuries following his life. There is little substantive evidence that Khayyām wrote all of the poetry attributed to him, especially considering the vast quantity of poetry that is said to have been. As such, Cole seeks to trace the development, through literary analysis and the use of lithographs, of the genre of Omarian poetry and the practice of ascription that occurred throughout each era.

  PublisherDOI

• 17 Omani Peacemaking and Middle East Crises in the 2010s: Sultan Qaboos’ Last Decade

  Edinburgh University Press eBooks · 2022-05-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Wishing Peace on Persecutors in Islam: Classical Qur’ān Commentaries (Sufi and Rationalist) on Al-Furqān 25:63–64

  Wiener Beiträge zur Islamforschung · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Muslim Nonviolent Civil Resistance in Modern World History

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022-02-14

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter considers peaceful Muslim movements of civil resistance in modern world history, using three case studies. The author looks at the Murid movement of Senegal, with its declaration that the time of jihad ended with the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The author explores the complex attitudes to French colonialism of Murid leader Amadou Bamba—a refusal to take up arms, but a cultural critique of amoral European secularism and imperialism. The author then considers thinking on peace among Congress Party Muslims allied with Gandhi and among the Pukhtuns organized by Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The author distinguishes between Abul Kalam Azad, for whom nonviolent cooperation was a pragmatic tactic, and Abdul Ghaffar, a utopian pacifist who opposed warfare in principle. The author concludes by examining nonviolent Muslim activism against Apartheid in South Africa by leaders such as Maulana Farid Esack, in concert with the multi-faith United Democratic Front. The conclusion analyzes commonalities among these movements and examines key differences.

  PublisherDOI

• Omani Peacemaking and Middle East Crises in the 2010s: Sultan Qaboos’ Last Decade

  Edinburgh University Press eBooks · 2022-05-10

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The Sultanate of Oman under the rule of Sultan Qaboos developed a culture of peace making and mediation over the five decades of his rule. Oman’s geographical position on the edge of the Arab world abutting the Strait of Hormuz, its good relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran, the diversity of its population all contributed to this potential for a role as mediator.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael Hanagan

  23 shared

• Charles Tilly

  New School

  23 shared

• Louise A. Tilly

  23 shared

• Peter C. Perdue

  23 shared

• John Coatsworth

  23 shared

• Nikki R. Keddie

  5 shared

• A By

  4 shared

• Fawaz A. Gerges

  4 shared

Labs

• U-M LSA American CulturePI

Education

• Ph.D., Islamic Studies

  University of California Los Angeles

  1984