Lesley Hazleton

Lesley Hazleton (b. 1945) is a British-American journalist and writer whose work bridges religious history and existential reflection. Trained in psychology at Manchester and Hebrew University, she reported from Jerusalem for thirteen years before settling in the United States, where she shifted from political journalism to narrative histories of early Islam and Abrahamic religion.

Her trilogy of books on Islamic origins—'After the Prophet' (2009), on the Sunni–Shia schism following Muhammad's death; 'The First Muslim' (2013), a biography of Muhammad; and her earlier 'Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother' (2004)—seek to present sacred figures as historically situated persons. The books were praised for accessibility but also drew criticism from specialists who noted reliance on secondary sources and dramatized reconstruction.

'Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto' (2016) articulates her positive defense of agnosticism, distinguishing it from both new-atheist certainty and confessional faith. Drawing on William James, Rilke, and the Islamic apophatic tradition, she frames doubt and the experience of mystery as intellectually and ethically generative rather than as failure to commit. She has criticized Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for what she regards as a fundamentalism of unbelief, and has been criticized in turn by atheists who view agnosticism as evasion. She blogs as 'The Accidental Theologist.'