Professor Sajjad Rizvi

I'm an intellectual historian who is interested in the course of philosophy in the Islamic world both past and present, and especially in the Persianate world. Increasingly I am interested in how that study and category of philosophy coincides with the emergent category of global philosophy. In terms of method, my research is informed by the need for a decolonial and reparative study of Islam.

I supervise graduate students broadly in Islamic intellectual history, especially in philosophy, theology and Quranic exegesis. 

I am currently interested in three projects: a monograph on Plato and Platonisms in Islam, a theological analysis of Imamology in Shiʿi thought, and the reception of some European philosophies in the postcolonial Muslim context.

With a former student and colleague Ahab Bdaiwi, I am editing the Oxford Handbook of Shii Islam.

I have advised various government departments and private sector concerns on Iraq, Iran, Shii Islam in the Gulf, and Islam in Britain and Europe.

I also run a blog that has my various musings on philosophy both Islamic and otherwise as well as notes on manuscript research and related critical editions. The blog entitled Hikmat is available here.

I tweet under the name @mullasadra

For office hours and research leave go here.

Biography:

I read modern history at Christ Church, Oxford (1991-1994) where I developed an interest in philosophy and in particular Islamic philosophy. At the time, because my interests were in the modern world, I read Modern Middle East Studies for an MPhil, staying in Oxford (1994-1996), specialising with a dissertation on philosophy in 19th century Qajar Iran.

I then decided to continue the study of philosophical traditions by focusing on the Safavid period and moved across to the other place. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, I eventually wrote my doctoral dissertation on the philosophy of existence in the thought of the Iranian Safavid philosopher Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. c. 1635), obtaining my PhD in 2000.