Sara Verskin

Sara Verskin is an Assistant Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto (St. George campus). Her research intersects religion, gender, and medicine in the medieval Islamicate world, with a focus on Islamic family law, women’s healthcare, and interreligious dynamics.

• PhD, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University
• AB, University of Chicago

Her work explores historical intersections of Islamic law and women's vulnerabilities/opportunities in marriage, divorce, and inheritance systems. She investigates Arabo-Galenic medical practices, gendered healthcare access, and syncretism in medieval cross-religious interactions through the lens of women’s health-seeking behaviors.

Current projects examine midwives' legal testimony in North African/Islamic Spanish lawsuits and an 8th/14th century treatise on popular religious practices in Mamluk Egypt. She continues expanding her research into women's roles in medieval medical knowledge transmission.

• 2018 British Association for Islamic Studies - De Gruyter Prize