Suha Taji-Farouki
Biography
Current Academic Posts
Lecturer in Modern Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
Research Associate/Faculty Member, The Institute of Ismaili Studies (London)
Previous and Visiting Academic Posts
Lecturer in Modern Islam, University of Durham (1994-2004)
Lecturer in Contemporary Islam and Arabic, University of Durham (1991-1994)
Visiting Fellow/Faculty Member, The Institute of Ismaili Studies (1999-2003)
Visiting Fellow, The Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, Amman, Jordan (1997)
Visiting Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (1996)
Education
PhD in Modern Islam and Middle East Politics ( Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami - History,
Ideology and Organisation, 1952-1993 ), University of Exeter (1993)
BA (Honours) in Classical Arabic and Islamic Studies with Persian, University of
Durham (1987)
Publications
Monographs and edited volumes ed.,
Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an
(Oxford and New York: OUP in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2004). Persian translation:
Rawshanfikran-i mutijaddid-i musulman (Farzan, Tehran, 2006) with Basheer M. Nafi, ed., Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century (London and
New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004) with Ronald L. Nettler, ed., Muslim-Jewish Encounters: Intellectual Traditions and
Modern Politics (Reading: Harwood, 1998) with Hugh Poulton, ed., Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (London and New
York: Hurst/NYUP, 1997)
A Fundamental Quest: Hizb al-Tahrir and the Search for the Islamic Caliphate
(London: Grey Seal, 1996). Turkish translation:
Hizbu’t-Tahrir ve Hilafet
(Istanbul: Yonelis, 1998)

Journal articles
‘al-mujtama‘at al-Islamiyya al-Britaniyya: lamha ‘an hayatihim wa usulihim wa ihtimamatihim al-haliyya’, al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabi 286 (2002) pp. 41-52
‘Sadiq Nayhum: An Introduction to the Life and Works of a Contemporary Libyan
Intellectual’,
The Maghreb Review 25: 3–4 (2000) pp. 242-273
‘Muslim-Christian Co-operation in the 21 st Century: Some Global Challenges and
Strategic Responses’, Islam and Christian – Muslim Relations 11: 2 (2000) pp.
167-193
‘Islamists and the Threat of
Jihad : Hizb al-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun on Israel and the
Jews’,
Middle Eastern Studies 36: 4 (2000), pp. 21-46. Reprint in Bryan S.
Turner, ed., Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology (London: Routledge, 2003) vol. IV, pp. 236-260 with Quintan Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations and Muslim
Politics: A Case from Jordan’,
Third World Quarterly 21: 4 (2000) pp. 685-
699
‘A Case-Study in Contemporary Political Islam and the Palestine Question - the
Perspective of Hizb al-Tahrir’, Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations 2 (1995) pp. 35-58
‘Nazariyyat al-Dawla al-Islamiyya wa al-Waqi‘ al-Mu‘asir: Hala Dirasiyya’, Qira’at
Siyasiyya 5 (1995) pp. 83-99
‘From Madrid to Washington: Palestinian Islamist Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Settlement’,
World Faiths Encounter 9 (1994) pp. 49-58
‘Islamic Discourse and Modern Political Methods: An Analysis of al-Nabhani’s
Reading of the Canonical Textual Sources of Islam’, American Journal of
Islamic Social Sciences 11: 3 (1994) pp. 365-39
Chapters
Modern Intellectuals, Islam and the Qur’an: the example of Sadiq Nayhum, in Taji-
Farouki, ed., Modern Muslim
Intellectuals and the Qur’an
(Oxford and New
York: OUP, 2004) pp. 297-332
Thinking on the Jews, in Taji-Farouki and Nafi, ed., Islamic Thought in the Twentieth
Century (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004) pp. 318-367
Zur Einrichtung einer professur fur islamische theologie in Hamburg, in Islamische
Theologie (Hamburg: Korber-Stiftung, 2002) pp. 37-61
A Contemporary Construction of the Jews in the Qur’an: A Review of Muhammad
Sayyid Tantawi’s Banu Isra’il fi’l-Qur’an wa’l-Sunna
and ‘Afif ‘Abd al-
Fattah Tabbara’s al-Yahud fi’l-Qur’an , in Nettler and Taji-Farouki, ed.,
Muslim-Jewish Encounters - Intellectual Traditions and Modern Politics
(Reading: Harwood, 1998) pp. 15-37
Islamic State-Theories and Contemporary Realities, in Sid Ahmad and Ehteshami, ed., Islamic Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Westview, 1996) pp. 35-50

Forthcoming with Youssef Choueiri, ‘Sayyid Qutb’, Encyclopaedia of Religion (Macmillan, 2005)
Beshara and Ibn ‘Arabi: A Movement of Sufi Spirituality in the Modern World
(I. B.
Tauris, 2006)
‘A Prayer of Ibn ‘Arabi: Contemporary Use, History, Critical Edition and Translation of al-Dawr al-a‘la’ , Journal of the Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi Society (2006) ed., On Reading the Qur’an: Language, Culture and Interpretation in Twentieth
Century Tafsir (OUP, 2007)
Chapter: ‘From Washington, D.C.: Muhammad al-‘Asi’s Tafsir in English’
Chapter: ‘Islam and Other Faiths’, in Roberto Tottoli, ed., Islam and Modernity
(Rome: Einaudi, 2007)
Research
My research interests focus on aspects of the interface between Islam and modernity, particularly the impact of the modern experience and the cultural transformations associated with modernity on Islamic thought in its methodologies, central concerns and relation to historical textual and intellectual traditions. Current and planned research projects address both Sufism and Salafism, the former through the legacy of the great 13 th century Andalusian mystic Ibn ‘Arabi, the latter as a highly influential modern Islamic intellectual tradition encompassing a wide range of intellectual trends, thinkers and movements.
Courses
Modern Islamic Thought
This course explores the evolution and diversification of Islamic thought during the modern period, mapping shifting modes of religious-intellectual authority and their implications, and key debates and concerns. It encompasses the spectrum of ideological/intellectual/political positions as well as a wide geographical scope reaching beyond the Muslim world to include thinkers based in the west.
Modern Islamic Thought: Arabic Texts
This course (a companion course to Modern Islamic Thought ) examines a representative selection of influential Arabic texts by modern Islamic thinkers, from
Islamists (radical and moderate) to their opponents, modernist, liberal and sufi. It provides an opportunity to engage in detail with original sources while helping to develop Arabic language research skills.
Islam and Politics

This course explores the theoretical debate concerning the interface between Islam and politics, discussing issues such as the Islamic state, democracy and human rights, nationalism, trans-nationalism and globalism. Theoretical issues and debates are illustrated through examples drawn from the Muslim experience on the ground in governments, Islamic movements and international Islamic organisations, for example.
Islam beyond the Muslim World: Europe and the USA
This course examines Muslim communities outside of majority Muslim countries, focusing on Britain, Western Europe and the USA and considering religious, political, legal and sociological dimensions and contemporary debates.