Laura Hassan

Position:

Associate Faculty Member

Faculty Address:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Email:

laura.hassan@ames.ox.ac.uk 

Research Interests:

• Islamic intellectual history
• Post-classical Islamic theology and philosophy
• The Ash'arī tradition
• The interface of Islamic religion and science

Courses Taught:

• Theology and Philosophy in the Islamic World

Recent Publications

“Language and Human Uniqueness: an Exploration of Abū Muḥammad Ibn Mattawayh’s (d. after 415/1025) Discussions of Speech and Language.” To be published in the proceedings of the workshop on Islamic Theological Anthropology organised by Shoaib Malik and Jon Hoover (forthcoming 2024).

“Rational Speculation as a Cause of Knowledge: Assessing the Ontological Foundations of Classical Ash‘arī Foundationalism.” To be published with Edinburgh University Press in the proceedings of the First Workshop of the Templeton Foundation funded project “Beyond Foundationalism: New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology”, led by Ramon Harvey and Safaruk Chowdhury, (forthcoming 2024). 

“Avicenna” in Eight Classical Perspectives for Islam and Science, edited by Shoaib Malik, Routledge (forthcoming 2024).

“Miracles as Signs? Revisiting Jesus’ Gospel Miracles in the Light of Medieval Muslim Critique” in Reading the Bible in Islamic Context, edited by Shirin Shafaie, Routledge (forthcoming 2024).

“Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) Kashf al-Tamwīhāt fī sharḥ al-Ishārāt wa l-tanbīhāt: Avicennan Philosophy as Currency in the Struggle for Influence.” Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 14 (2023): 65-109. https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023143

“Epistemic Humility and the Non-Ultimacy of Nature: Perspectives from ‘ilm al-kalām.” ASIPT Online Journal (2023).

Review: Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil, by Safaruk Chowdhury (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2021), vii + 252 pp. Price HB $59.95. Journal of Islamic Studies,  34.1 (2022): 109–114. https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etac051

“In Pursuit of the World’s Creator: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Discussions of the Origins of the Universe in al-Maṭālib al-‘Āliya”. Res Philosophica, 98.2 (2021): 233-259. https://doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2042

“Sense Perception in Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī's Rumūz al-Kunūz: a Theologian's Encounter with Avicennan Psychology.” In Philosophical Problems in Sense Perception: Testing the Limits of Aristotelianism. Edited by David Bennett and Juhana Toivanen. Geneva: Springer, 2021.

Ash‘arism encounters Avicennism: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on Creation, Piscataway: Gorgias Press (2020; revised PhD thesis). Won the Gorgias Press Classical Islamic World Book Prize.

Review: Aydogan Kars: Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam (AAR Academy Series.) XII, 344 pp. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. £64. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 83.2 (2020): 338-340.

 “al-Āmidī, Sayf al-Dīn.” In Oxford Islamic Studies Online, (June 2019).

 “The encounter of falsafa and kalām in Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s discussion of the Atom: Asserting traditional boundaries, questioning traditional doctrines.” In Polyvocia SOAS Postgraduate Research Journal (February 2014).

Audiovisual Content

Istanbul Islamic Studies Faculty, January 2023: "At the Interface of Religion and Science: Insights from Ibn Sīnā".

Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies and Gorgias Press: The Author’s Voice, December 2021: Hosted by Professor Sabine Schmidtke

Tehran Islamic Studies Monitor, March 2021: Discussion with Dr Salimeh Maghsoudlou on my monograph, hosted by Dr Mohsen Feyzbakhsh of the University of Tehran.