Born in the United States Prof. Meri hails from a Jerusalemite family. He is presently an associate of Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), Georgetown University. From 2018-2023 he was a faculty member of Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar and has been a Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, Merrimack College, U.S.A. From 2014-2015 he was Visiting Professor in the Department of Studies of Islam in the Contemporary World at the University of Jordan. During the 2013-2014 academic year Meri served as 8th Allianz Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians-University of Munich. From 2011-2014 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies, Cambridge University. From June 2010-March 2013 he was Fellow of St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University and served as Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, Woolf Institute, Cambridge. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and has lived in Amman, Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. From 2005-2010 he lived in Amman, where he oversaw a major Qur'anic exegesis project at the Jordanian Royal Court. He previously held visiting appointments at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London and the University of California at Berkeley.
Prof. Meri is a historian of religions and a specialist in the history of Muslim-non-Muslim Relations in past and present.
Prof. Meri recently served as editor of the Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations(2016), a major academic resource for the academic study of Muslim-Jewish Relations. He previously served as Founding Advisory Board Member (Islamic Studies), Oxford Bibliographies On-line (2008-2010), General Editor of Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia (2002-2005), Series Editor of the Great Tafsirs of the Holy Qur'an series (Fons Vitae Publishers, USA with Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Amman, Jordan)(2005-2010), Section Editor (Islam) of Wiley-Blackwell's Religion Compass (2005-2010) and Book Review Editor (Medieval Islamic and Jewish Studies), Speculum, published by the Medieval Academy of America (2007-2012) and Founding Editor of Intertwined Worlds (2010-2013), an e-platform dedicated to the academic study of Muslim-Jewish and Muslim-Jewish-Christian Relations.
