Moshe Sharon

Moshe Sharon (Hebrew: משה שָׁרוֹן‎‎; born December 18, 1937) is an Israeli historian of Islam who has been called "Israel's greatest Middle East scholar."

He is currently Professor Emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he serves as Chair in Bahá'í Studies.

Sharon was born in Haifa in 1937. He joined the faculty of Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1965 and would go on to earn a Ph.D. at the same institution in 1971. He served as an Arab Affairs adviser to Prime Minister Menachem Begin and served in the Ministry of Defense, during which took part in the negotiations for peace with Egypt. Sharon established the Centre of Jewish Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, which he directed while serving as director of the World Zionist Organization branch in Johannesburg. In 1999 he was appointed to the chair of Bahá'í Studies at Hebrew University. Sharon serves as a policy expert for the Ariel Center for Policy Research. He and his wife, Judy, have six children.

Moshe Sharon has written about early Islamic history and the development of Shia Islam. He is a specialist in Arabic epigraphy and papyrology, with his opus being Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae. In 2005 he published the first translation into Hebrew of Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the holy book of the Bahá'í faith, and included a study of the history and theology of the religion.

...
Wikipedia