Presenting Scholars

Prof. Ahmad Ahmad

Dr. Ahmad Ahmad is currently a professor of Religious Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Research Interests: Islam and modernity, Islamic jurisprudence

Prof. Binyamin Abrahamov

Dr. Binyamin Abrahamov is currently a professor in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University.

Research Interests: Arabic-Islamic theology, al-Ghazālī, Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī, Ibn Taymiyya.

Prof. Charles E. Butterworth

In addition to being a professor at Maryland University, Dr. Butterworth has been Past-president of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies (ACSIS) as well as of the Société Internationale pour l‘Étude de l‘Histoire de la Philosophie et la Science Arabe et Islamique (SIHSPAI), Continuing Education and Extension Project for Palestinians and Teachers on the West Bank and in Gaza (CEEPAT), For several years he was the Principal Investigator for the Smithsonian-sponsored Project in Medieval Islamic Logic in Cairo, Egypt.

Research Interests: Medieval Arabic and Islamic political philosophy

Prof. Hans Daiber

One of the most eminently qualified scholars in the diverse fields of Islamic philosophy, theology, the Greek heritage in Islam, and the history of Arabic literature, Dr. Hans Daiber is currently a professor emeritus, having held the chair of Oriental Philology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.  He has been an ordinary member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1981 and was a research fellow of the German Oriental Institute in Beirut, Lebanon.

Research Interests: Arabic Literature, Islamic Theology and Philosophy

Prof. Therese-Anne Druart

Dr. Druart taught at Georgetown University before moving to the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  She has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona (Spain), The University of Pennsylvania, and a Visiting Professor at Institut Catholique de Madagascar.

Research Interests: Ancient Philosophy and Islamic World History

Prof. Ken Garden

Dr. Ken Garden's research centers on the medieval Muslim religious scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious and controversies it inspired in Muslim Spain and Iran. His studies have taken him to Germany, Spain, Egypt, where he spent a year at the American University in Cairo, and Morocco, where he lived for two years in Fez and Rabat. Professor Garden was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, a lecturer at Yale, and a visiting assistant professor at Amherst College; he is currently a professor in the Department of Religion at Tufts University.

Prof. Avner Giladi

Dr. Avner Giladi obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and is currently an Associate Professor at Haifa University in Israel.  He has published extensively on the history of childhood and education in the pre-modern Islamic context.

Research Interests: History of Islamic Religion, History of Family, Women and Children, History of Education in Medieval Muslim Societies.

Prof. Scott Girdner

Currently an assistant professor at Randolph-Macon College, Dr. Scott Girdner has substantial teaching experience, including work at Boston University, Northeastern University, Western Kentucky University, and Hebrew College.

Research Interests: Islamic philosophy, and comparative scriptural hermeneutics (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) and the relationship between science and religion

Prof. Frank Griffel

Currently Professor of Islamic Studies at Yale University, Dr. Frank Griffel has been a Mellon Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey; he has also been a research fellow at the Orient Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Research Interests: Islamic Theology and Philosophy, mainly al-Ghazālī

Prof. Steven Harvey

Dr. Steven Harvey is currently chair of Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and President of the Commission of Jewish Philosophy of the S.I.E.P.M. (Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale).

Research Interests: Medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian philosophy, Greek philosophy, Medieval Arabic and Hebrew commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, Medieval Arabic and Hebrew encyclopedias of science and philosophy

Prof. Alfred Ivry

Dr. Alfred L. Ivry has been a professor at New York University as well as President of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy and a board member of the American Academy for Jewish Research; he has also been affiliated with the American Oriental Society, the Association for Jewish Studies, the Medieval Academy of America, and the International Society for the History of Arabic and Islamic Science and Philosophy.  He has received numerous teaching awards, including awards from the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars and the Fulbright Foundation.

Research Interests: Medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy, history of philosophy, modern Jewish thought

Prof. Jules Janssens

Dr. Jules Janssens has been a research collaborator in the De Wulf-Mansionchentrum, in the Higher Institute for Philosophy in Belgium since 1996; he has also been charged with the edition of the Avicenna Latinus, Physics 2 and 3, by the French section of the Royal Academy of Belgium.  Dr. Janssen became an associated researcher of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, in Paris, France, in September of 2007.

 Research Interests: Islamic Philosophy; Avicenna; al-Ghazālī

Prof. Birgit Krawietz

Dr. Birgit Krawietz is a professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.  After earning her Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg in 1990, she worked as a post-doctoral assistant at the Orientalische Seminar at the University of Tübingen and was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Islamic Studies Program at Harvard Law School. 

Research Interests:  Islamic studies, Islamic jurisprudence

Prof. Taneli Kukkonen

Dr. Taneli Kukkonen is Research Professor in Antiquity, University of Jyväskylä; in 2012, he starts at a position in Islamic Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Kukkonen has published widely on Arabic philosophy, and on the Aristotelian commentary tradition from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages. He leads the European Research Council project, Subjectivity and Selfhood in the Arabic and Latin Traditions (SSALT, 2009-2012) and is medieval team leader for the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence, Philosophical Psychology, Morality, and Politics (PMP, 2008-2013). Professor Kukkonen is currently preparing a book on al-Ghazali for Oxford University Press.

Research Interests: Arabic philosophy and the Aristotelian tradition in Greek, Jewish, Arabic and Christian civilizations

Prof. Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat

Dr. Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat teaches Arabic/Islamic Medieval Philosophy at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and at Universidad Panamericana. He has been visiting scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (University of Texas at Austin) and is currently a resident Member of the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton University.

Research Interests: Aristotelianism, Islamic philosophy

Prof. Wilferd Madelung

A leading contemporary Islamicist, Dr. Wilferd Madelung has made significant contributions to modern scholarship on medieval Islamic communities and movements.  He became Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago in 1969 and the Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1978 to 1998. Professor Madelung is at present Senior Research Fellow with The Institute of Ismaili Studies.

Research Interests: Islamic Studies, Medieval Islamic Philosophy & Jurisprudence

Prof. Yahya Michot

Dr. Yahya Michot was director of the Center for Arabic Philosophy at the University of Louvain in Belgium from 1981-1997; later, he was selected as a KFAS Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and entered the Faculty of Theologoy at Oxford University.  He is also the founder and director of the collection “Sagesses musulmanes.”  He is currently a professor at Hartford Seminary.

Research Interests:  Islamic Philosophy (Ibn Taymiyya and Avicenna); Inter-religious dialogue; Islamic Thought; Islamic History; Comparative Religion

Prof. Yasien Mohamed

Dr. Yasien Mohamed is currently a lecturer in Arabic at the University of the Western Cape.

Research Interests: Islamic Philosophy, Arabic Language & Literature

Prof. Eric Ormsby

Dr. Eric Omsby has been Professor and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University; he has also served as Director of Libraries at the Catholic University of America and at McGill University.  He has studied Islamic theology and philosophy and Semitic philology at the University of Tübingen.

Research Interests: Islamic Thought; Medieval Islamic theology and mysticism, especially that of al-Ghazālī; Arabic Literature

Prof. M. Sait Ozervarli

Dr. M. Sait Ozervarli has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, and serves as a member of the Center for Islamic Studies in Istanbul, Turkey.

Research Interests: Islamic theology and philosophpy

Prof. Sobhi Rayan

Dr. Sobhi Rayan is a lecturer in the Department of Education in Al-Qāsemi Academy College in Israel.

Research Interests:  Philosophy of Education, Critical Pedagogy , Islamic Philosophy

Prof. Tamar Rudavsky

Dr. Tamar Rudavsky is professor of philosohpy and Jewish Studies at The Ohio State University.  For many years she served as director of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies, and has been a long-time member of S.I.E.P.M.  She works primarily in medieval Jewish and scholastic philosophy, and has recently published a book on Maimonides.

Research Interests: Philosophical cosmology, medieval Jewish and scholastic philosophical theology

Prof. Bilal Sambur

Dr. Bilal Sambur has lectured at Selly Oak Colleges, Woodbrook College, and at the University of Birmingham.  Previously a member of the faculty at the Univeristy of Suleyman Demirel in Isparta, Turkey, he is also a Research Fellow at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Dr. Sambur is currently a professor at Yıldırım Beyazıt University Ankara-Turkey. 

Research Interests:  Psychology of Religion; Philosophy of religion; Islamic Mysticism

Prof. Hidemi Takahashi

Dr. Hidemi Takahashi has been a lecturer then an associate professor in the faculty of Policy Studies in Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan; currently he is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo.

Research Interests:  Syriac Studies

Prof. Richard C. Taylor

Dr. Richard C. Taylor has previously been a Fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt, a Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Cairo, a Research Associate at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, as well as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vatican Film Library at St. Louis University.  He has worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto and was named to the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at Marquette University in 1982.

Research Interests: Islamic Studies; Religious Studies; Philosophy of Religion; History of Metaphysics; Theories of Ethics; Conceptions of God