Dr. Ahmed Mohamed M.Abdelkawy Sheir

Dr. Ahmed Mohamed M.Abdelkawy Sheir

Research Fellow, Near & Middle Eastern Studies


Biography

Ahmed Sheir is a Postdoc Research Fellow in the pre-modern sociocultural history of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the ERC-funded Project "Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah", Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies. He is also an affiliated Fellow at the Islamic Studies Department, CNMS, University of Marburg, Germany. Ahmed studied history at Alexandria University, Egypt. In 2014, He graduated with a master's degree in medieval history with joint supervision between Georg-August University of Göttingen (Germany) and Damanhour University (Egypt). He then completed a PhD in History, funded by the Jameel Scholarship Fund Program, at the Philipps-University of Marburg, Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS), Germany, in 2021. His dissertation focused on historicising the Crusading-Muslim Encounter through the Prester John Legend and its Eastern-Latin Entanglements during the 12th and 13th centuries. After completing his dissertation, he held a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung at CNMS Philipps-University of Marburg in 2021. Before joining TCD, he also taught courses and seminars on the history of the crusades, medieval Islamic-Christian relations, Islamic history, the Mongols and European-Islamic relations, and Gulf history, among other subjects. Ahmed's research interests include; 1) sociocultural history through myth, literature and folklore; 2) pre-modern Jewish-Christian-Muslim interrelationships across the Mediterranean and the Middle East through the Geniza documents; 3) history, historiography and memory of the crusades and Islamic Jihad in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

  • Ahmed M A Sheir, The Prester John Legend between East and West during the Crusades. Entangled Eastern-Latin Mythical Legacies, Trivent publishing, 2022, 1 - 367ppBook, 2022, URL
  • Aly Elsayed, Abdallah Al-Naggar, Ahmed M. Sheir , Studies in Peace-building History between East and West through the Middle Ages and Modern Era, CNR-Italy & ASRT-Egypt, Sanabil Bookshop,, 2019, 1 - 213ppBook, 2019, URL , TARA - Full Text
  • Between the Downfall of Edessa and the Capture of Damietta: How the Glamour of the Prester John Legend Influenced the Crusader-Muslim Conflict, (539-618 AH / 1144-1221 AD) in, editor(s)Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Kurt Villads Jensen , Legacies of the Crusades. Outremer 11, Turnhout, Brepols , 2021, pp47 - 71, [Ahmed M Sheir ]Book Chapter, 2021, URL
  • Ahmed M Sheir , ʿAmr Munīr: Miṣr fī al-āsāṭīr al-ʿarabiiyah (Egypt in Arabian Myths), Review of Miṣr fī al-āsāṭīr al-ʿarabiiyah, by ʿAmr Munīr , Middle East - Topics & Arguments, vol. 13, 2019, p103-107Review, 2019, URL

Research Expertise

  • Title
    Sociocultural relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Premodern Mediterranean and the Middle East through Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah
    Summary
    Ahmed is a postdoctoral Researcher in premodern history in the European Research Council-funded project 'Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah (APCG)' (2020-25), led by Dr Mohamed Ahmed (PI) at the Near and Middle Eastern Studies, TCD. Ahmed's role, as part of the APCG research team, is to conduct a comprehensive historical investigation of the Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic poetic fragments in the Cairo Genizah to explore hitherto hidden aspects of the sociocultural history of Jews and their relations with Muslims and Christians across the premodern Meditteranean and the Middle East. Further, this part of the project also examines the literary, intellectual and cultural mutual influences between Jews, Christians and Muslims through Genizah poetry.
    Funding Agency
    ERC
    Date From
    2022
    Date To
    2024