MIAS Education Interdisciplinary Research Hub

Interdisciplinary Research Hub

The Interdisciplinary Research Hub (IRH) was set up in response to a perceived interest from young researchers in an interdisciplinary engagement with Ibn ‘Arabi. Its primary purpose is to provide a space where students and researchers, from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and different methodologies of research, can regularly meet with each other, share their research and engage with the works of Ibn ‘Arabi.

Despite it being early days, this cross-pollination has already borne significant results: notably the series of presentations made over the last year on the MIAS Education YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBduInEwpghNB61SaaKhtIrxQHuph5kxB

Language Acts & Worldmaking Project October 2021

This collaboration between the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society and King’s College, London, which was part of the University’s ‘Language Acts and Worldmaking’ project, saw the IRH participate in a programme which was co-sponsored by The Open University, University of Westminster, Queen Mary University, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Open World Research Initiative. The multi-disciplinary event brought together students and scholars in a celebration of Ibn Arabi’s contribution to the creative imagination. A two-part video presentation was made of the event.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6_M6nYc6dVkKIhhQ8eA-T6yt4SCa5ybg

Presentations and shared discussion

The Hub organises regular online presentations which offer a different environment to the MIAS Online Seminars. The presentations are made by our young researchers, giving them an opportunity to develop their ideas in a space where they are free to revise or augment their work in response to attendees’ questions.

In addition, we also arrange talks by scholars who wish to share their interdisciplinary interests with us. Our scholar presentations are structured in such a way that the students are given a chance to respond to the presentations from their own research perspective; thus, creating a space and environment of sustained interaction between global scholars and our students at the Hub.

Our presentation forums are open to everyone and we hope you will join us to encourage the next generation of Ibn ‘Arabi scholars.  Attendance is free but registration is required.

Recent researchers’ presentations include:

Bharatwaj Iyer (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay): ‘Heidegger, Ibn ‘Arabi and Dhikr: a phenomenology of remembrance’
Esmé L.K. Partridge (Writer, researcher and interfaith consultant): ‘The celestial ‘polished mirror’: the mystical dimension of the moon according to Ibn ‘Arabi’
Iffat Mirza (University of Cambridge): ‘Mysticism, creativity and the written word: Arab references in a selection of works by Jorge Luis Borges’
Muhammad Osama Imran (University of Minnesota): ‘Breaths of intimacy: unbounded selves and tangled temporalities in the Sufi ritual Dhikr’
Hina Khalid (University of Cambridge): ‘Breathing with reverence: creation as praise in Iqbal, Tagore and Ibn Arabi’
Kris Ramlan (University of Frankfurt): ‘The poetics of wujud in the syairs of Hamzah Fansuri: between the China Sea, camphor tree and non-place’

Recent scholars’ presentations include:

Professor Nükhet Kardam (Middlebury Institute of International Studies): ‘Noah’s voyage in Ibn ‘Arabi’s The Secrets of Voyaging’
Dr. Omneya Ayad (University of Üskudar): ‘The concept of poverty (faqr) in the thought of Niyazi Misri in his work Mawa’id al-‘irfan’
Dr Federico Salvaggio (University of Udine): ‘Polysemy and Hermeneutics in Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam’.
Mansoor Abidi (Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara): ‘Sufism of Ibn al-‘Arabi and Analytical Psychology of C. G. Jung’
Eliza Tasbihi (McGill University): ‘Ḥaydar Āmulī’s Shiʿa commentary on the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam’.

Recordings can be found on the Hub’s YouTube channel.

To find out more, contact education.uk@ibnarabisociety.org