​  Dr. Edith Szanto

 Associate Professor of Religious Studies

​@ The University of Alabama  

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Edith Szanto is an Associate Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. 

She has previously taught at the University of Toronto and at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.   

Dr. Szanto received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012.  Her dissertation examined Twelver Shi'i practices in Syria, where she spent three years as a Fulbrighter researching popular Islamic practices and working for the UN. 

In 2025, Dr. Szanto published her first monograph entitled "Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab."  The book focuses on Twelver Shi'i education, rituals, and discourses at the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab and in the seminaries surrounding the shrine.       

Her new project examines religion in Iraqi Kurdistan.    

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Wonder

is the beginning

of wisdom.