Research Scholar of Islamic Philosophy and Theology

Email: a.ahsan@ibnrushdcentre.org

Profile

Dr Abbas Ahsan is Research Scholar of Islamic Philosophy and Theology. He received his Ph.D in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in 2021. His doctoral research focused on the application of dialetheism, paraconsistent logics, and formal theories of truth to Islamic theological paradoxes. 

Previously Abbas worked as a visiting research fellow at theUniversity of Birmingham, School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion, Department of Philosophy, where he also worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in Islamic Philosophy of Religion. 

His areas of research interests are philosophy of logic, non-classical logics, philosophy of language, meta-metaphysics, analytic theology, and Islamic philosophy and theology.

Education

PhD	University of Birmingham, Philosophy (part time) PhD Thesis: “Islamic Contradictory Theology” http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/12186/ Supervisor: Professor Yujin Nagasawa
MA	University of Leeds, Philosophy of Religion Thesis: “God Beyond the Boundary-Stones of Thought” Supervisor: Professor Robin Le Poidevin
BA	University of Bradford, Interdisciplinary Human Studies Sociology, English Literature, Psychology, and Philosophy Specialized in Philosophy
	Higher Education in Islamic Theological Studies Darul Uloom Islamic College/Seminary Bury (Greater Manchester, UK)

Publications

Books

• Monograph in progress, FoundationsofcontemporarylogicinIslamicphilosophicaltheology, Routledge.
• Monograph in progress, IslamicContradictoryTheology, SUNY Press.

GuestEditorforSpecial Issue

• Guest editor for special issue ‘Exchanges between Analytic and Islamic South Asian Philosophies’, Asian Journal of Philosophy. https://link.springer.com/collections/hgdjijdcca
• Organizational committee member of the 4^th world congress on logic and religion and guest editor of Concepts of God: Consistency, Inconsistency and Paraconsistency Issues. http://4wocolor.pl/?w=13#w
• Guest editor for special issue ‘Interactions between analytic and Islamic philosophy/theology’, The European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, (2022), Volume 18, No. 2. https://eujap.uniri.hr/volume-18-no-2-2022/

Book Chapters

• In progress, ‘Double Trouble with Ibn Rushd: A Plurality of Truth and/or Logics’ in

ContradictionandtheAbsolute,Graham Priest, and Behnam Zolghadr (eds), Routledge.JournalPapersUnder Review

• Ahsan, A. ‘Expanding Logical Space; Making Room for Islamic Theological Contradictions’.
• Ahsan, A. ‘Theological Incompleteness; Beyond the Contradictory One: Al-Taftāzānī’sGödel Inspired Solution’.

Journal Papers in Progress

• Ahsan, A. ‘Paraconsistent Islamic Theology’.
• Ahsan, A., and Joaquin, J.J. ‘Dialetheic Approaches to Doctrinal Contradictions’.

Journal Papers

• Ahsan, A., and Karima, M. (2022). ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on Interactions Between Analytic and Islamic Philosophy/Theology’. EuropeanJournalofAnalyticPhilosophy, 18(2), pp. S1-14.
• Ahsan, A., and Karima, M. (2022). ‘Torn Between the Contours of Logic: Exploring Logical Normativity in Islamic Philosophical Theology’. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 18(2), pp. S10-41.
• (2022). ‘Islamic Mystical Dialetheism: Resolving the Paradox of God’s Unknowability and Ineffability’. Philosophia 50, pp. 925–964.
• (2021). ‘The Possibility of Analytic Philosophy in United Kingdom Madrasas’. Journalof Islamic and Muslim Studies 6(1), pp. 56 83.
• (2021). ‘Beyond the Categories of Truth’. Axiomathes. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021- 09581-4
• (2021). ‘Islamic Contradictory Theology . . . Is there any such thing?’. LogicaUniversalis, 15(2),

pp. 297-329.

• (2020). ‘Analytic Theology and its Method’. Philotheos, 20(2), pp. 173-211.
• (2020). ‘The logical inconsistency in making sense of an ineffable God of Islam’. Philotheos, 20(1), pp.68-116.
• (2020). ‘God Beyond the Boundary-Stones of Thought’. AmericanJournalofIslamandSociety, 37 (3-4), pp.50-97.
• (2019). ‘The Paradox of an Absolute Ineffable God of Islam’. Philotheos, 19(2), pp.227-259.
• (2019). ‘Quine’s Ontology and the Islamic Tradition’. AmericanJournalofIslamicSocial Sciences, 36(2), pp.20-63.
• (2018). ‘The Classical Correspondence Theory of Truth and the God of Islam’. Philosophyand Theology, 30(2), pp.273-294.
• (2017). ‘A Realist Approach in Analytic Theology and the Islamic Tradition’. Philosophyand Theology, 29(1), pp.101-132.

Presentations

• 2022, Round Table Discussion, Annual Islamic Philosophy Conference: Islamic Philosophy and Theology in Contemporary Engagements, Cambridge, MA.
• 2022, ‘What’s So Bad About Theological Contradictions’, A Global Philosophy of Religion Project: Philosophies of Appropriated Religions in Southeast Asia Workshop, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.
• 2022, ‘Making Epistemic Room for Theological Contradictions’, international symposium hosted by Beyond Foundationalism: New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology, Cambridge Muslim College.
• 2020, ‘Islamic Contradictory Theology . . . Is there any such thing?’, Muslim-Christian (inter- faith) Workshop on Philosophy, Religion and Science, İbn Haldun Üniversitesi, Istanbul.
• 2019, ‘The Paradox of an Absolute Ineffable God of Islam’, Islamic Philosophy Conference, Harvard University.
• 2019, ‘The Classical Correspondence Theory of Truth and the God of Islam’, Muslim-Christian (inter-faith) Workshop on Philosophy, Religion and Science, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul.
• 2017, ‘Detaching the God of Islam from Analytic Metaphysics’, Work-in-progress workshop, University of Birmingham.
• 2016, ‘Is Analytic Theology Even Possible in the Islamic Tradition’, Work-in-progress workshop, University of Birmingham.

2020. Safaruk Chowdhury, ‘God, Gluts and Gaps: Examining an Islamic Traditionalist Case for a Contradictory Theology’. HistoryandPhilosophyofLogic. https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2020.1797449

――― 2022. ‘Explaining Evil in the Bio-Sphere: Assessing Some Evolutionary Theodicies for Muslim

Theists’. Zygonhttps://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12775

――― 2022. ‘The Risāla fīādāb al-baḥth wa-l-munāẓara of Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1206/1791) and Applications to Contemporary Argumentation Theories’. In Osmanlı’daİlm-iMantıkveMünazara. Istanbul: İSAR, 551-570.

――― 2022. ‘“Invoke Your Lord in Humility and in Secret (Q. 7:55)”: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the Efficacy of Petitionary Prayers’. JournalofIslamicPhilosophy 13:3-49.

――― 2023. ‘“God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India”.

Kader20: 960-983.

――― 2024. ‘Prayer Language and the Problem of Petitionary Prayer in Islamic Theology’. In Islamic Philosophy of Religion: Analytic Perspectives. Routledge (forthcoming).

――― 2024. ‘Suffering, Islamic Consolation Literature and the Process of Meaning Making’. Journal of IslamicEthics (forthcoming)

Papers and Presentations

Safaruk Chowdhury, ‘Exploring Meaning-Making in the Midst of Suffering’. Saturday 4^th February 2023, British Board of Scholars and Imams, 11^th Symposium, London.

―――, ‘Quantum Mechanics, Incompleteness of Physical Reality and An Islamic Occasionalist Idealism’.

Saturday 3^rd December 2022, ASIPT Conference, Harvard University, Boston.

―――, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Fiṭralism and Alvin Plantinga’s Religious Epistemology: A Study in Comparative Theories of Belief’. Monday 6^th June 2022, BRAIS, Edinburgh.

―――, ‘Late Ottoman Art of Disputation: The Risāla fīĀdāb al-Baḥth wa-l-Munāẓara of Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d.1206/1791)’. Friday 17^th December 2021, İSAR, Istanbul, Turkey.

―――, ‘Abū ’l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī’s Critique of Various Definitions of Knowledge in Tabṣiratal-Adilla: A

Philosophical Analysis’. Saturday 4^th December 2021, ASIPT Conference, Harvard University, Boston.

―――, ‘Death and Destruction in the Earth’s Zone of Life: Examining Some Islamic Evolutionary Theodicies’. Wednesday 5^th July 2021, LUSSI, Leiden.

―――, ‘A Very Heated Affair: Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī’s Justification for Hell’s Unending Chastisement’. Wednesday 23^rd June 2021, BRAIS, London.

―――, ‘Bayʿa to the Machines: How is a Ṣūfī to be within a post-Human Ṭarīqa?’ Saturday 1^st May 2021, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul.