Research Associate
Berenike Metzler is a habilitated Islamic Studies researcher, currently working at the OIB on a DFG-funded project on Arabic letter semiotics (see “projects”) and based at the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C. She worked in the fields of Qurʾānic studies and early Islamic theology and mysticism and published her dissertation titled “Den Koran verstehen. Das Kitāb Fahm al-Qurʾān des Ḥāriṯ b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī” in 2016. Afterward, she tried to approach art historical objects of investigation from a terminological perspective and joined a DFG-funded project on text-image relationships in Islamic art at the University of Bamberg (with Prof. Lorenz Korn, 2017-2021). She has recently published her habilitation on concepts of visuality in Islamic cultures at the Chair of Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies in Erlangen, titled Kulturen des Sehens. Begriffsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Visualität im Islam.
The study of the semiotics of Arabic letters is an entirely new field of research. So far, various aspects of Arabic letters in Islamic cultural history have been worked on, but an overall survey of how these letters function has yet to be done...
I. Books
• Den Koran verstehen. Das Kitāb Fahm al-Qur’ān des Ḥāriṯ b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī (781-857), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag 2016.
• With Lorenz Korn (eds.), Writing as Intermediary. Text-Image Relations in Early Modern Islamic Cultures, Bamberger Orientstudien 16, Bamberg University Press 2022.
• Kulturen des Sehens. Begriffsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Visualität im Islam, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2024.
II. Articles and Bookchapters
• Linseis, Verena/Metzler, Berenike/Saßenscheidt, Christian, „Fromme Männer unterwegs. Religiös motivierte Bewegungen in der mittelalterlichen Welt Europas und des Orients“, in: Borgolte, Michael et al. (eds.), Europa im Geflecht der Welt. Mittelalterliche Migrationen in globalen Bezügen, Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2012, pp. 119-132.
• „Der Buchstabe als heiliges Ding. Ein-Blicke in die Buchstabentheologie islamischer Kalligraphen“, in: Beck, Andrea/Herbers, Klaus/Nehring, Andreas (eds.), Heilige und geheiligte Dinge. Formen und Funktionen, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2017, pp. 201-212.
• „Qurʾānic Exegesis as an Exclusive Art. Diving for the Starting Point of Ṣūfī Tafsīr“, in: Tamer, Georges/Grundmann, Regina/Kattan, Assaad Elias/Pinggéra, Karl (eds.), Exegetical Crossroads. Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Pre-Modern Orient, Berlin: de Gruyter 2018, pp. 319-328.
• „How to do Things with Calligraphy. Some Considerations on the Performative Aspect of Safavid Calligraphy“, in: Ben Azzouna, Nourane (ed.), Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 8, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag 2022, pp. 197-208.
• „Modi des Reisens im Islam: der koranische Befund“, in: Godlewicz-Adamiec, Joanna/ Piszczatowski, Paweł (eds.), Vagabunden – Flüchtlinge – Eroberer Vormoderne Migrationsprozesse zwischen geschichtlichen Metanarrativen und Postkolonialismus, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag 2022, pp. 83-100.
• “Overcoming the Dichotomy of Text and Image: The Safavid Album Prefaces (1500–1700)”, in: Korn, Lorenz/Metzler, Berenike (eds.), Writing as Intermediary. Text-Image Relations in Early Modern Islamic Cultures, Bamberger Orientstudien 16, Bamberg University Press 2022, pp. 129-148.
• „Qalam as literary motif. The Semantic Field of the Term qalam in a Safavid Album Preface of the 16th Century.”, in: Szántó, Iván (ed.), Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 9, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag 2023, pp. 49-60.
• „Muḥāsibī“, in: Tamer, Georges (ed.), Handbook of Qurʾānic Hermeneutics, Berlin/Boston (in preparation).
• „Tustarī“, in: Tamer, Georges (ed.), Handbook of Qurʾānic Hermeneutics, Berlin/Boston (in preparation).
• „On the Limits of the Sayable and their Overcoming by ʻLanguage Gamesʼ in the Thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Islamic Mystical Philosophers of the 11th and 12th Centuries”, in: Hajatpour, Reza/Tamer, Georges (eds.), Philosophy and Mysticism in the Islamic World, de Gruyter (in preparation).
III. Reviews
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein/Dagli, Caner K./Dakake, Maria Massi/ Lumbard, Joseph E. B./Rustom, Mohammed (Hg.): “The Study Quran. A New Translation and Commentary”, New York 2015, in: ZDMG 168.2 (2018), pp. 500-502.
• Koloska, Hannelies, „Offenbarung, Ästhetik und Koranexegese. Zwei Studien zu Sure 18 (al-Kahf)“, in: ThLZ 142.9 (september 2017), pp. 874-876.
• al-Salimi, Abdulrahman, “On the Reception of Early Ibadi Theology. A Commentary on the Book on Monotheism by ‘Abd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī (2nd/8th Century)”, in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 117.1 (2022), pp. 55-57.
• O’Meara, Simon, “The Kaʿba Orientations: Readings in Islam’s Ancient House”, in: Die Welt des Islams (2023), pp. 1-4.
