Dr Badreldeen Ismail
Dr Badreldeen Ismail al-Husayni is the Founding Dean and Senior Lecturer at The Classical Institute, a position he has held since 2018. He delivers courses across Islamic intellectual and linguistic studies, including Arabic language and literature, kalam theology, Sufi traditions, Shafiʿi jurisprudence and legal theory, Qurʾan and Hadith studies, as well as Islamic and Western philosophy.
He is currently an Academic Visitor at the University of Nottingham, at the Centre for Theology, Philosophy and Religion in the Department of Philosophy. During this visitorship, he is pursuing research in two areas: preparing an edited translation and critical Arabic edition of a seminal pre-modern kalam text, and continuing his research into mystical tahqiq and ethical value in al-Baqillani’s al-Insaf. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Dr Ismail undertook a BA (Hons) in Arabic Language, Literature and Islamic Studies at the University of Cairo, before completing an MA with distinction in Quranic Studies and Medieval Arabic Theology at SOAS. Thereafter, he completed his PhD at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh, with a thesis titled “Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri’s variegated theology: teleological considerations and interdisciplinary discourses”. This built upon his study of a comprehensive curriculum of Islamic sciences over a period of 15 years, with prominent scholars from Egypt, Syria, Hadramaut and al-Ahsa, within a traditional framework.
Dr Ismail’s primary research interests relate to the Islamic rational sciences of Islamic philosophical theology (ʿilm al-kalam) and Islamic philosophy (falsafa), as well as Sufism (tasawwuf). Of specific interest are related interdisciplinary areas, such as the intersection between kalam theology and Sufism, and philosophical Sufism. He focuses in particular on the key epistemological, dialectical and metaphysical debates in the Islamic intellectual tradition, as well as the underlying teleological considerations. Also of interest is the interface between classical Islamic kalam and medieval Christian philosophical theology, particularly in the Augustinian and Aquinian traditions. In his areas of research interest, he is regularly invited to peer review articles and books pre-publication.
His current projects explore (a) the presence of a transcendental Sufi theology in the works of the mutaqaddimun amongst the Ashʿarites; (b) the intersection of Akbarian and Ashʿarite traditions in the 11th/17th and 12th/18th centuries; and (c) a comparative study of divine predestination and human free will in classical Islamic kalam and the Augustinian tradition.