Yunus Valerian Hentschel studied Arabic and Islamic Studies as well as Political Science at the University of Vienna. In January 2021, he concluded his Ph.D. on Contemporary Sufi Approaches to the Qur’ān.
Yunus was a Junior Fellow at the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies in Vienna (IFK) in 2018/19, Visiting Assistant in Research at Yale University in 2019, and Guest Researcher at Utrecht University in 2020. In 2021/22, he worked at the Erlangen Centre for Islam & Law in Europe (EZIRE), co-leading a project on German Muslims’ perceptions of systemic discrimination.
Yunus currently holds a Postdoc position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2022-2025), conducting research within the ERC project: Visionis. Vision and Visuality in the Qur’an and Early Islam, focusing on early Muslim juridical and theological discourses.
PUBLICATIONS
Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2020: Mystik und Macht im Abbasidenkalifat. Mansur al-Hallaj und der Skandal der Wahrheit. Mit einer Einleitung von Michael Mitterauer, Die Levante – frühe Ansätze der Globalisierung. Vom 5. Jahrhundert bis zur Neuzeit 4, Vienna: LIT.
Mitterauer, Michael/Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2020: “Patrilinearität und Silsila. Ein Spannungsfeld zwischen väterlicher Abstammungslinie und sufischer Lehrtradition am Beispiel Südosteuropas,” in: Gruber, Siegfried et al. eds.: From the Highlands to Hollywood. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Southeastern Europe. Festschrift for Karl Kaser and SEEHA, Studies on South East Europe 25, Vienna/Zurich: LIT, 309–333.
El-Abdaoui, Khalid/Hentschel, Yunus Valerian eds. 2017: Die Vielfalt Islamischer Wirklichkeiten. Neue Ansätze in den Islamischen Studien an der Universität Wien, Berlin: Logos.
Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2017: “Der Lichtvers als Anleitung zum Verständnis des Koran: Ein Beispiel sufischer Koranhermeneutik,” in: El-Abdaoui/Hentschel eds. 2017: 143–153.
Reviews
Howe, Justine ed. 2021: The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender, London/NewYork: Routledge, in: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 33/3 (2022), 307–309, https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2022.2066301.
Malik, Hamza 2018: The Grey Falcon. The Life and Teaching of Shaykh ˁAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, Islamic History and Civilization 155, Leiden/Boston: Brill, in: WZKM 111 (2021), 426–430.
Lawson, Todd 2018: Tafsir as Mystical Experience: Intimacy and Ecstasy in Quran Commentary. Tafsīr sūrat al-baqara by Sayyid ˁAlī Muḥammad Šīrāzī, The Báb (1819–1850), Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān 14, Leiden/Boston: Brill, in: WZKM 110 (2020), 362–366.
Mauder, Christian/Würz, Thomas/Zinsmeister, Stefan (Hg.) 2016: Koran in Franken. Überlegungen und Beispiele für Koranrezeption in fremden Kontexten, Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, in: WZKM 108 (2018), 430–434.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2023: Blicke in den Spiegel des Koran. Sufische Koraninterpretationen der Gegenwart, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau/Brill.
Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2022: “Post-Ottoman Idealization within German Sufism. Two German Converts and their Reframing of Turkish Sufism,” in: Kara, Cem/Reuter, Evelyn/Turóczy, Zsófia: Entangled Sufism in (Post-)Ottoman Europe. Cross-Disciplinary Approaches, Routledge (Sufi Series), pp.
Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2022: “The Female Caliphate: The Qur’an, Female Voices, and Gender Dynamics in Present-Day Sufism,” in: Butorović, Amila/Kuehn, Sara eds.: Female Visions: The Religious Visual Culture of Contemporary Female Islamic Mysticism, Leiden/Boston: Brill (Woman and Gender Series), pp.
Gartenstein, Basya/Hentschel, Yunus Valerian 2022: “To what ends? The semi-permeability of Muslim-Jewish exchange: beyond romanticisms of mysticism and symbiosis,” in: Müller, Johannes/Machka, Felix/Kurt, Tugrul/Rogers, Christoph eds.: Grenzgänge wissenschaftlicher Reflexivität in Judentum, Christentum und Islam, Darmstadt: wbg, 238–287.