Dr. Samir Saad

Main Fields of Research

Late Ottoman and modern Arab legal history; global and comparative legal history; intellectual, political, and social history of the Middle East; imperialism, nation-building, and ideology

Vita

I am a historian of the Arab world and the late Ottoman Empire, with particular interests in the political, legal, and intellectual history of the region. My doctoral thesis reconstructs efforts of reforming Ottoman transactional civil law in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. By focusing on the politics that accompanied these efforts, my dissertation analyses the contending visions and rationales of Arab politicians and jurists for replacing the Ottoman civil code with newer civil codes.

I grew up in Amman, Jordan. I studied politics in Canada for my first undergraduate degree, after which I completed an LLB in the UK. For two years, between 2017 to 2019, I practiced as a trainee lawyer in Amman. I earned my PhD in Middle Eastern history from King’s College, Cambridge.