Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom have shared the Hamad Bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University since it was established in 2006. Experts in many aspects of the history of Islamic art and architecture, the husband-and-wife team also share the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College. Together they are the authors of many books, including The Art and Architecture of Islam: 1250-1800 (London: Yale UP, 1994) and Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon, 1997). Their book, Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001), was written as a companion to Gardner Films’ 3-part PBS television series, Islam: Empire of Faith. Their latest collaboration is Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection Copenhagen (Chestnut Hill, MA: McMullen Museum, 2006), the catalog that accompanied the exhibition of the same name held at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College in the fall of 2006 and at the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago in the spring of 2007.

Sheila Blair is individually the author of Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2006) Islamic Inscriptions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998), A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din's Illustrated History of the World (London: Oxford UP, 1995), as well as hundreds of articles on various topics in Islamic art, from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to 17th-century amulets.

Jonathan Bloom is individually the author of the forthcoming Arts of the City Victorious: The Art and Architecture of the Fatimids in North Africa and Egypt (London: Yale UP, 2007), Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001) and Minaret: Symbol of Islam (Oxford, Oxford UP, 1989). He was the editor of Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002) and co-author of The Minbar from the Kutubiyya Mosque (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), as well as author of many articles on differing aspects of Islamic art from the mosques of Cairo to medieval Islamic woodwork.

For many years they worked as area editors for Islam and Central Asia for the 32-volume Dictionary of Art (London: Macmillan, 1997) which is now available online as Grove Art Online. They are currently transforming the entries into a new two-volume Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, to be published in 2008. They also serve as sectional editors for art and architecture for the fourth edition of E. J. Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Islam.