Bilal Orfali
Associate Dean of Research; Visiting Professor of Middle East and Arab Studies
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD Yale University
Research Areas: Arabic and Islamic Studies, Literature, Philology
Bilal Orfali is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi. He previously held the Sheikh Zayed Chair for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut, where he also served as Director of the Center for Arts and Humanities and Director of AUB Press. At NYU Abu Dhabi, he has taught in the Division of Arts and Humanities and led the Arabic Program. His research spans Arabic literature, Qurʾānic studies, and Sufism, with particular attention to classical anthologies, adab traditions, and the intersections of poetry and mysticism.
Orfali plays a leading role in scholarly publishing in Arabic and Islamic studies. He is editor of al-Abhath Journal and al-Markaz: Majallat al-dirāsāt al-ʿArabiyya; co-editor of Brill’s Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān and Handbook of Sufi Studies; and co-editor of the Sheikh Zayed Series for Arabic and Islamic Texts and Studies at AUB Press. He also serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and as a board member of the Library of Arabic Literature at NYU Abu Dhabi.
In addition to his editorial work, Orfali has served on the juries of some of the Arab world’s most prestigious literary and scholarly prizes, including the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2025), the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (2023–2025), the King Faisal Prize (2022), and the Kuwait Prize (2023, 2025). He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, where he advises on initiatives to promote Arabic language, literature, creative industries, and cultural heritage. He is also the co-founder of the World Arabic Literary Salon, a platform for dialogue and exchange among writers, scholars, and readers of Arabic literature.
The author and editor of more than twenty books, Orfali’s recent publications include Radiant Lights (Brill, 2022), The Maqāmāt of Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī: Authorship, Texts, and Contexts (Reichert, 2022), Mysticism and Ethics in Islam (AUB Press, 2022), and Poetry and Spiritual Insight (AUB Press, 2025). His scholarship combines rigorous philology with a wide-ranging view of Arabic literary culture, contributing to global conversations on the history of ideas, aesthetics, and spirituality in the Arab-Islamic world.