Fitzroy Morrissey

Position:

Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Law; Fellow of Pembroke College

Faculty / College:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; Pembroke College

Research interests:

• Sufism

• Islamic law

• Islamic views of Judaism and Christianity & Jewish and Christian views of Islam

• The comparative study of the Abrahamic religions

• Modern Islamic thought

Current projects:

• A study of attitudes to music and games in Islamic law

• A general history of modern Islamic thought

• A project (with Ronald Nettler) on the reception of the classical Islamic tradition in contemporary Islamic thought

Courses taught:

• Introduction to Islam (for first-year readers of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish)

• Islamic Religion (for Final Honour School in Arabic; co-taught)

• Undergraduate and graduate options on Sufism and Islamic Law

Recent publications:

Books

• A Short History of Islamic Thought (London: Head of Zeus; New York: Oxford University Press, 2021; paperback, 2022).

• Between Judaism and Islam: A Special Issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies in Honour of Samuel Miklos Stern (1920-1969) (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021) (editor).

• Sufism and the Scriptures: Metaphysics and Sacred History in the Thought of ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (London: I.B. Tauris, 2021; paperback, 2022).

• Sufism and the Perfect Human: from Ibn ʿArabī to al-Jīlī (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020; paperback, 2021).

Articles and book chapters

• ‘Jesus in Islamic Mysticism,’ in Son of Mary: Jesus in Muslim Tradition, edited by Stephen R. Burge, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press, forthcoming.

• (with Ronald L. Nettler), ‘Mohamed Talbi’s Discussion of Ibn Khaldūn as the “Pioneer of Reason and Modernity”,’ in The Maghreb Review, vol. 47 (2022), no. 3, pp. 260-91.

• ‘Jewish-Muslim symbiosis, Islamic Hellenism, and the purpose of Islamic Studies: the humanistic legacy of Samuel Stern’s teachers,’ in The Journal of Modern Jewish Studies: A Special Issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies in Honour of Samuel Miklos Stern (1920-1969), edited by Fitzroy Morrissey, vol. 20 (2021), no. 4, pp. 421-53.

• ‘The Origins of the Fuṣūṣ: Early Explanations of Ibn ʿArabī’s “Vision” of the Prophet,’ in Special Issue of The Maghreb Review in Honour of Ronald L. Nettler, edited by Sajjad Rizvi, vol. 45 (2020), no. 4, pp. 763-94.

• (with Ronald L. Nettler), ‘Ibn Khaldūn on Sufism: A Story of Truth vs. Falsehood in Three Parts,’ in The Maghreb Review, vol. 44 (2019), no. 4, pp. 403-430.

• ‘The Perfect Human in Modern Iranian Shī‘ism: Murtaḍá Muṭahharī’s ‘Irfān-Oriented Conception of the Ideal Human Being,’ in Iran Namag, vol. 2 (2017), no. 1, pp. 30-48.