Angelika Neuwirth is Professor for Arabic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Classics and Islamic Studies at Göttingen, Munich, Teheran, and Jerusalem, and served as guest professor at the University of Jordan (1977-83). Since 1991 she has been Chair of Arabic Studies at Berlin, and from 1994-2000 she was Director of the German Orient Institute in Beirut and Istanbul. Her research interests include Qur’anic studies, classical Arabic literature, and modern Arabic literature. Neuwirth recently published (with Michael Marx and Nicolai Sinai) The Qur’an in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Milieu of the Qur’an (2009).