Representative Publications

Appearing in 2020 with Cambridge University Press, Islam and the Devotional Object:    Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria reconstructs a rich material culture that until recently flourished in the Islamic heartlands. Taking materiality as  inextricable from metaphysics, this study traces the turbulent lives of key religious objects. Elaborate parades in Cairo and Damascus displayed decorated objects of great value, destined for Mecca and Medina. These included the precious yearly dress sewn for the Ka’ba, and large colorful sedans mounted on camels, which mysteriously would complete the Hajj without carrying a single passenger. Along with the brisk trade in Islamic relics, these objects and the variety of contested meanings attached to them, constituted a material practice of religion that persisted until the colonial interventions of the nineteenth century. The rising tide of political Islam that engulfed the region in the twentieth century, for its own ideological reasons, continued the colonial suppression of this religious culture.

In collaboration with Lenn Goodman, McGregor has published a critical Arabic edition and English translation of The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn (Oxford, 2009). Part of a tenth-century Iraqi encyclopedia, this philosophical text explores ethics, religion, and science, in the form of a fabled court case at which the animals of the world argue against humanity's claim of superiority over all creation. In this rich allegorical fable the exploited and oppressed animals pursue a case against humanity. They are granted the gift of speech and presented as subjects with views and interests of their own. Over the course of the hearing they rebuke and criticize human weakness, deny humanity's superiority, and make powerful demands for greater justice and respect for animals. This sophisticated moral allegory combines elements of satire with a thought-provoking thesis on animal welfare.

The Case of the Animals also appeared in paperback, English translation only, with Oxford in 2012.

In 2004 McGregor published Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt: the Wafa’ Sufi Order and the Legacy of Ibn ‘Arabi. Using the original writings of two Egyptian Sufis, Muhammad Wafa' and his son 'Ali, this book shows how the Islamic idea of sainthood developed in the medieval period. Although without a church to canonize its "saints," the Islamic tradition nevertheless debated and developed a variety of ideas concerning miracles, sanctity, saintly intermediaries, and pious role models. In the writings of the Wafa's, a complete mystical worldview unfolds, one with a distinct doctrine of sainthood and a novel understanding of the apocalypse.

In 2006 and 2010, McGregor co-edited The Development of Sufism in the Mamluk Period, and Sufism in the Ottoman Era. These papers in English, French, and Arabic, explore the diversity of Sufism with special attention to Egypt, Syria, and the Maghreb in the medieval and pre-modern periods.

Professor McGregor's current projects include a new translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sira, entitled Selections from the Life of Muhammad, and an edited volume on Islamic ritual.