A three-year research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and hosted by Cambridge Muslim College.

Beyond Foundationalism: New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology is a new research project led by Dr Ramon Harvey, Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College.

The project aims to gauge the adequacy of the dominant Muslim theological approach to epistemology, as well as to assist the development of contemporary philosophical theology.

The project examines meta-epistemology, the justification of knowledge, in the kalām tradition, including foundationalism and its alternatives, and will put it into conversation with contemporary analytic philosophy and theology.

We explore the following questions: how do historical and contemporary Sunnī kalām epistemologies approach the question of foundations? To what extent is recent theistic philosophical theology a useful model for Muslim theologians? And which contemporary philosophical approaches to meta-epistemology are most fruitful in advancing a philosophical theology responsive to the particularities of the Muslim tradition?

The aim is to gauge the adequacy of the dominant Muslim theological approach to epistemology as well as to assist the development of contemporary philosophical theology, or kalām jadīd, on this important question.

Team

PROJECT LEADER Ramon is the Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Ebrahim College in London and lectures on the BA in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College. He received his MA and PhD in Islamic Studies from SOAS, University of London.

PROJECT RESEARCHER Safaruk studied Philosophy at Kings College London completing it with the accompanying Associate of Kings College (AKC) award.

PROJECT OFFICER Shahanaz is currently studying for a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, with a focus on Islamic legal theory. Prior to this, Shahanaz completed her MA in Islamic Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

The project will organize three main events: two workshops and one international symposium.

1. The first workshop will bring together historians working on the kalām tradition and related subjects, such as Islamic philosophy, as well as traditionally trained Muslim theologians, to discuss premodern approaches to epistemology.

2. The second workshop will also engage scholars of the Christian and Jewish theological traditions on the question.

3. The international symposium will continue the deliberations of the two workshops and broaden the conversation into the field of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Publications

• During the project, Dr Harvey will produce a monograph that significantly touches on the project’s theme, as well as a relevant journal article.

• Dr Chowdhury will produce a monograph focused on the project’s theme, as well as two relevant journal articles.

• Additionally, Dr Harvey and Dr Chowdhury will edit a collected volume with chapters drawn from the project’s events.

Source: Cambridge Muslim College