May Farhat
Associate Professor of Practice
M.A. Islamic Art and Architecture, University of Victoria, BC, Canada
B.A. Arab-Islamic History, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
May Farhat is a historian of Islamic art and architecture with a focus on the early modern period. She completed her Ph.D. in History and Architecture at Harvard University. Her research interests cover the architectural history of the Middle East, with a focus on Safavid Iran and the late Ottoman visual culture in Bilad al-Sham. She has published many articles including, “Shiʻi Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: Mashhad under the Early Safavid Shahs,” Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies 47, 2 (2014); “Urban Morphology and Sacred Space: The Mashhad Shrine during the Pahlavi Period 1925-1980,” for The Friday Mosque in the City: Liminality, Ritual Politics, eds Suzan Yalman and Hilal Ugurlu (Intellects, 2021); “A Mediterraneanist’s Collection: Henri Pharaon’s ‘Treasure House of Arab Art,’” Ars Orientalis 42 (2012); “Beirut’s Great Umari Mosque: History, Memory and Post-War Reconstruction,” for Articles of Faith: Visual Cultures in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds. Essays in Honor of Erica Cruikshank Dodd, eds. Eva Baboula, Lesley Jessop, and Marcus Milwright (Brill, 2021).