Dr Richard Todd

• DPhil in Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
• MSt in Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
• BA (Hons) in Arabic with Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Durham University

I have taught Islamic thought and culture, and Arabic language and literature, at Durham University and the University of Edinburgh. In 2013-14 I was Visiting Assistant Professor at the American University of Sharjah.

Undergraduate

• Introduction to Islam
• Introduction to Qur’anic and Classical Arabic
• Sufism: Belief and Practice
• Dissertation Preparation

Postgraduate

• Islamic Philosophy
• Approaches to Studying Islam

Contributions to team-taught modules

• Introduction to the History of Christianity
• Religion and the Arts

I would be interested in supervising the following areas of research:

• Islamic philosophy, especially Ibn Sīnā and the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ
• Islamic theology
• Sufism (especially the school of Ibn ʿArabī) and Sufi literature in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu
• Qur’anic Exegesis
• Islamic medicine and alchemy
• Christian Scholasticism and its reception of Jewish and Islamic philosophy
• The Arabic influence on Renaissance and Reformation Europe

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Find out more - our PhD Theology and Religion  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

• Medieval philosophy, especially Arabic Aristotelianism and critiques of Avicennan thought
• Ashʿari and Muʿtazili theology
• Sufism and its interaction with philosophy: I am working on two new projects in this connection: ‘Levels of being in Sufi thought’ in A Handbook of Sufi Cosmology, edited by Alexander Knysh and Christian Lange, (Brill, Handbooks of Sufi Studies), commissioned June 2016; and ‘Philosophical Sufism? Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī’s Miftāḥ al-ghayb’ in A Guide to Sufi Literature, edited by Mohammed Rustom and Joseph Lumbard, (University of California Press), commissioned July 2016
• Arabic medicine and science, especially post-Jābirian alchemy and its influence on Renaissance and Reformation Europe: I am currently preparing a new monograph on this topic – A History of Arabic Alchemy: from Abbasid Iraq to Ottoman Istanbul
• Medieval scriptural commentaries, in particular philosophical, theological and mystical hermeneutics
• Classical Arabic wine songs, Sufi poetry, and didactic verse
• Islamic codicology

• Member of the British Association for Islamic Studies
• External Examiner for the University of Aberdeen
• Outreach: Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015: ‘Treasures from the East: A Guided Tour to the University of Edinburgh’s Special Manuscript Collection’