Courtney Lesoon

Courtney Lesoon is a historian of Islamic art, architecture, and urbanism.

She received her PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. Her dissertation, “Knowledge and the City: Redefining Islamic Urbanism, 762–1067,” demonstrates that the rapid urbanization of the Islamic world in its first five centuries can be attributed in part to the development of an independent class of city administrators who ensured that urban life thrived even in the most tumultuous of political times. The study subverts existing historical models of urbanism, which were developed for medieval Europe, by excavating a theorization of the city from the political writings of the philosopher al-Farabi (d. 950), who argues that cities require the administrative wisdom of learned men trained in law. To historically corroborate al-Farabi’s theory, which has been cast as utopian, Courtney identifies these learned men in the historical record as the ʿulamaʾ. These learners inherited their legal authority from the Prophet via the transmission of hadith and thus did not rely entirely on the political vesting of the caliph or amir to carry out Islamic law on the level of the city. This study demonstrates that the ʿulamaʾ served as city administrators via two primary positions—the qadi (judge) and the muḥtasib (officer of public order)—and via other positions delegated by these two offices. This dissertation contributes to Islamic intellectual history, Islamic material histories, and histories of premodern urbanisms.

Courtney's doctoral work was supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Fulbright-Hays program and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation. In 2021, she was awarded the Margaret B. Ševčenko Prize for “the best unpublished essay written by a junior scholar” for her paper “The Sphero-conical as Apothecary Vessel: An Argument for Dedicated Use.”Courtney’s doctoral work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Fulbright-Hays Program and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation. In 2021, Courtney was awarded the Margaret B. Ševčenko Prize for “the best unpublished essay written by a junior scholar” for her paper “The Sphero-conical as Apothecary Vessel: An Argument for Dedicated Use.” The article is now published in Muqarnas 39.