Richard Foltz

Richard Foltz is an historian of comparative religious traditions, with a special focus on the Muslim world. His books L’Iran creuset de religions (Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2007) and Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century (St. Martin’s Press, 1999) propose historical models for considering the emergence, development and transmission of the world’s major religious traditions. He has also been active in helping shape a new subfield combining religious studies with environmental ethics, often referred to as “Religion and Ecology”, having edited a popular course text titled Worldviews, Religion and the Environment: A Global Anthology (Wadsworth Thomson, 2002) and two seminal volumes exploring environmental values among Muslims, Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust (Harvard, 2003) and Environmentalism in the Muslim World (Nova Science, 2005). His book Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures (Oneworld, 2006) is the first scholarly survey of how Muslims have viewed the importance of non-human animals. Dr. Foltz’s most recent journal articles are “The Religion of the Market: Reflections on a Decade of Discussion,” in Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 11/2 (2007), “Is Zoroastrianism an Ecological Religion?” in the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 1/4 (2007), and “Muslim ‘Orientalism’ in Medieval Travelogues of India,” in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 37/1 (2008). In all Dr. Foltz has authored or edited eight books and some seventy journal articles and other scholarly publications. His work has appeared in French, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Japanese, Indonesian, Urdu, German, Bosnian, Spanish, and Russian.