Associate Professor of History Leor Halevi was awarded the 2008 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for his book "Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society."
This is the third prize he has received for "Muhammad's Grave." It was also honored with the 2008 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion and the 2007 Albert Hourani Prize from the Middle Eastern Studies Association.
The book focuses on death rituals and beliefs about the afterlife from the early Islamic period, providing significant insights into a way of life that is alien to people today.
"The early Islamic world was a time of profound change. The new religion was in its formative stage, " said Halevi. "Muslims were still figuring out what their society was going to be like, what rituals they should perform. In so many ways it's a time period that is so far removed from us. It's hard today to get a concrete sense of what things were like back then."
Halevi said he brought this ancient world to life by focusing on intriguing details.
"Death rituals offer a particularly rich window into that historic time because caring for the dead took place in multiple different settings," Halevi said. Since the family took care of the deceased, death rituals could be a private affair; they might also involve prominent figures and an entire community, depending on the person's status.
"Death rituals shows different kinds of social dynamics," Halevi said. "That was one of the reasons I found death rites so appealing."
"As a historian, I like to take up topics that force me to exercise my imagination," Halevi said in regard to what drew him toward the topic.
Currently, Halevi is on leave from Vanderbilt and is working on a new book project titled "Forbidden Good: Cross-Cultural Trade in the History of Islam." He said he intends to focus on the status and views of non-Muslim and western products in Islamic culture.