Prof. Silverstein specializes in the history of the Middle East, from Late Antiquity until the Middle Ages. Most of his research is comparative, focusing on Islamic cultures within broad historical contexts. Prof. Silverstein studied at the University of Cambridge (Ph.D. 2002). Following a British Academy post-doctoral fellowship (2002-2005), he was a lecturer at the University of Oxford (2005-2010), and as Reader in Abrahamic Religions at King's College London, until his arrival in Israel in 2012. Prof. Silverstein joined the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in 2021.

 

His publications include:

 

- Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World (Cambridge, 2007)

- Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2010)

- Veiling Esther, Unveiling Her Story: The Reception of a Biblical Book in Islamic Lands (Oxford, 2018)