Nejra Salihbegovic

Nejra Salihbegovic is a PhD student in medieval Islamic and Jewish intellectual history and mysticism, working under the supervision of Dr Aydogan Kars and Dr Nathan Wolski. Her thesis will offer a comparative study on the science of letters in 13th century Sufism and Kabbalah, with a particular focus on Ibn Arabi and the Zohar. She graduated from a Bachelor of Arts (Languages) at the University of Sydney in 2019, having majored in French and Francophone Studies, Arabic Languages and Cultures, and Film Studies. She received First Class Honours for her 2021 French-language thesis on the mystical meanings of food in Simone Weil's later spiritual works.

Her academic publications include the 2024 article "Simone Weil et les dimensions mystiques de la nourriture" in Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics, and a Review Essay on the book Patterns of Contemplation published in 2023 by the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. She has also presented her PhD research at the 2023 Conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (AASR), on a themed panel with Dr Aydogan Kars and Dr Ashkan Bahrani concerning letter mysticism in Sufism and Kabbalah.