Research Summary

My research focuses on medieval Islamic intellectual history with an eye to its uses in the present. I am especially interested in the discourses of theology (kalam), philosophy (falsafa), legal theory (usul al-fiqh), Qur'an commentary (tafsir), Sufism, and Christian-Muslim theological interaction.

My current project examines how Ibn Taymiyya' formulates his unique views of God's attributes in dialogue with his theological, philosophical, and socio-political context. This builds on preliminary work carried out under a 2013-14 Leverhulme Research Fellowship entitled 'God and space in the theology of Ibn Taymiyya', which brought to light, among other things, his argumentation against the incorporealist view of God prevalent in his day. Five publications arising from this strand of research are 'God Spatially Above and Spatially Extended: The Rationality of Ibn Taymiyya's Refutation of Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Ašʿarī Incorporealism' (2022 open access), 'Ibn Taymiyya's Use of Ibn Rushd to Refute the Incorporealism of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi' (2018), 'Theology as Translation' (2018 open access), which analyzes and translates Ibn Taymiyya's legitimization of theology in his famous Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revealed Tradition (Dar' ta'arud al-'aql wa al'naql), 'Reason and the Proof Value of Revelation in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's late kalām works' (2019), and 'Early Mamlūk Ashʿarism against Ibn Taymiyya on the Nonliteral Reinterpretation (taʾwīl) of God's Attributes' (2020, Brill link).

I held a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for the calendar year 2018. Among other things, this included writing the volume on the Damascene scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) for Oneworld Press's Makers of the Muslim World series published in 2019 [Blackwell's Amazon.co.uk]. I elaborate and defend the theoretical perspective of the book in "Foundations of Ibn Taymiyya's Religious Utilitarianism" (2019). Of related interest is "Ibn Taymiyya between Moderation and Radicalism" (2016, green open access version).

My earlier work on Ibn Taymiyya focused on his best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy and related matters. The monograph Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism (2007 open access) examines Ibn Taymiyya's approach to God's justice and wise purpose in creating evil and situates this within his wider theological project. Two studies (2004 open access and 2010), Chapter Two of Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy, and a recent book chapter (2022) investigate Ibn Taymiyya's vision of God's dynamic essence and perpetual activity that was unusual if not unique in classical Islamic theology. Another four articles analyze Ibn Taymiyya's arguments for the final salvation of everyone, unbelievers included, and their extensive elaboration by his foremost student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) (2009 open access, 2013, and 2015 green open access), along with their reception by the Yemeni theologian Ibn al-Wazir (d. 1436) (2016 open access). I also have an article on Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's theodicy that provides a translation of his text explaining why God created Iblis (Satan) (2010).

Other publications on Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya include studies and surveys of their writings on Christianity (2010 open access, 2012a and 2012b), an analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's view on the Gospel's relation to the Torah (2022 open access), a survey of scholarship on Ibn Taymiyya (2012), and a history of Hanbali theology that includes an overview of Ibn Taymiyya's theology (2016, green open access).

I also write on Christian-Muslim relations. Among other things, this includes a survey of Muslim attitudes towards Christian doctrines for The Routledge Handbook of Christian-Muslim Relations (2018), a festschrift for Professor David Thomas (2015), an analysis of the Muslim letter A Common Word (2009 open access), and a comparison of the Christian and Muslim doctrines of God (2009 corrected version open access).