Ersilia Francesca is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. The main focus of her scholarly activity is on the origins and the development of the Ibāḍī school of law and its relationship to the Sunnī schools in the early centuries of Islam. In addition to her interest in Islamic law, particularly in contemporary fatwās, her recent research also includes gender studies and contemporary history of economics in the Arab world.

Among her recently published scholarship are an edited volume entitled Ibadi Theology. Rereading Sources and Scholarly Works (Hildesheim: Olms, 2015) and a book chapter entitled “Law and Politics in the Early Ibāḍī Communities: Abū ‘Ubayda al-Tamīmī’s Risāla to Abū ’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Ma‘āfirī.”