Herb holds a doctoral degree from the University of Toronto's Centre for the Study of Religion where he focused on Islam, Sikhism, and method and theory in the study of religion. His research focus on Islamic origins in the 7th and 8th centuries, and on the birth of the Nation of Islam in the United States.
Publications
Monographs
- Elijah Muhammad and Islam. New York:
New York University Press, 2009.
- The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam:
The Debate over the Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative
Period. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000.
Edited Volumes
- Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic
Origins, edited Herbert Berg. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
- Islamic Origins Reconsidered: John
Wansbrough and the Study of Early Islam, edited by Herbert Berg. Special
Issue of Method & Theory in the Study of
Religion 9.1 (1997).
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals and Collected Works
- “Failures (of Nerve?) in the Study of Islamic Origins.” Failure and Nerve
in the Study of Religion: Working with Donald Wiebe, edited by William E.
Arnal, Willi Braun, Russell T. McCutcheon, 112–128. London: Equinox, 2012.
- “The Essence of Essentializing: A Critical Discourse on ‘Critical Discourse
in the Study of Islam’.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 24
(2012):1–20.
- “Elijah Muhammad.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies,
edited by Tamara Sonn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- “Nation of Islam.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies,
edited by Tamara Sonn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- “The Needle in the Haystack: Islamic Origins and the Nature of the Early
Sources.” In The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies
on the Rise of Islam in Memory of John Wansbrough, edited by Basile Lourié,
Carlos A. Segovia, Alessandro Bausi, 299–330. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgia Press,
2012.
- “Elijah Muhammad’s Redeployment of Muhammad: Racialist and Prophetic
Interpretations of the Qur’ān.” In Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual
Sources of Islam: Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki, edited by Nicolet
Boekhoff-van der Voort, Kees Versteegh, and Joas Wagemakers, 321–345. Leiden:
Brill Academic Publishers, 2011.
- “The Isnād and the Production of Cultural Memory: Ibn ‘Abbās as a Case
Study.” Numen 58 (2011): 259-283.
- “Abbasid Historians’ Portrayals of al-‘Abbās b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib.” Abbasid Studies II: Occasional Papers of the School
of Abbasid Studies, Leuven, 28 June – 1 July 2004, edited by John Nawas,
13–38. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 177. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2010.
- “The Historical Muhammad and the Historical Jesus: A Comparison of Scholarly
Reinventions and Reinterpretations,” with Sarah Rollens. Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses,
32.2 (2008): 271–292.
- “Early African American Muslim Movements and the Qur’an.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 8.1 (2006):
22–37. Reprinted as “Wczesne ruchy afroamerykańskich muzułmanów i Qur’an.”
Translated by Julian Jeliński. In Nowoczesność Europa islam, edited by
Selim Chazbijewicz, Mariusz Turowski, and Karolina Skarbek, 283–295. Warsaw:
Instytut Studiów nad Islamem, 2012.
- “Context: Muhammad.” Blackwell Companion to
the Qur’ān, edited by Andrew Rippin, 187–204. Malden: Blackwell
Publishing, 2006.
- “Mythmaking in the African American Muslim Context: The Moorish Science
Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the Muslim Society of America.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion,
73.3 (2005): 685–703. Reprinted as “Mitotwórstwo w kontekście afroamerykańskich
ruchów muzułmańskich: Mauryjska Świątynia Wiedzy, Naród Islamu i Amerykańskie
Stowarzyszenie Muzułmanów.” Translated by Julian Jeliński. In Nowoczesność
Europa islam, edited by Selim Chazbijewicz, Mariusz Turowski, and Karolina
Skarbek, 267–281. Warsaw: Instytut Studiów nad Islamem, 2012.
- “Ibn ‘Abbās in `Abbāsid-Era Tafsīr.” Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of
Abbasid Studies, Cambridge 6–10 July 2002, edited by James E. Montgomery,
129–146. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 135. Leuven: Peeters Publishers,
2004.
- “Competing Paradigms in the Study of Islamic Origins: Qur’ān 15:89-91 and
the Value of Isnāds.” Methods and Theories in
the Study of Islamic Origins, edited by Herbert Berg, 259–290. Leiden:
Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
- “Weaknesses in the Arguments for the Early Dating of tafsīr.” In With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural
Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, edited by Jane Dammen
McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering, 329–345. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003.
- “Elijah Muhammad and the Qur’ān: The Evolution of His Tafsīr.” Muslim World 89 (1999): 42–55.“Elijah
Muhammad: An African American Muslim mufassir?” Arabica: Revue d’études Arabes
45 (1998): 320–346.
- “The Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods and Theories of John
Wansbrough.” Method & Theory in the Study
of Religion 9.1 (1997): 3–22. Reprinted in The Quest for the Historical
Muhammad, edited by Ibn Warraq, 489–509. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2000.
- “Tabarī’s Exegesis of the Qur’ānic Term al-kitāb.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63.4 (1995): 761–774.
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