Research Scholar of Islamic Philosophy and Theology

Dr. Abbas Ahsan

Dr Abbas Ahsan is a scholar of Islamic philosophy and theology specialising in philosophical logic, analytic theology and non-classical logics. His research examines how contemporary theories of logic, language and truth can illuminate questions and paradoxes within Islamic philosophical theology.

Biography

Dr Abbas Ahsan is a Research Scholar of Islamic Philosophy and Theology. He received his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in 2021. His doctoral research focused on applying dialetheism, paraconsistent logics, and formal theories of truth to Islamic theological paradoxes.
 
Previously, Abbas worked as a visiting research fellow at the University 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 research interests include 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
  • M.A. University of Leeds, Philosophy of Religion
    Thesis: “God Beyond the Boundary-Stones of Thought”
  • B.A. University of Bradford, Interdisciplinary Human Studies: Sociology, English Literature, Psychology, and Philosophy; specialised in Philosophy
  • Higher Education in Islamic Theological Studies
    Darul Uloom Islamic College/Seminary Bury (Greater Manchester, UK)

Publications

  • (2022). ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on Interactions Between Analytic and Islamic Philosophy/Theology’. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 18(2), pp. S1-14.
  • (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’. Journal of 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?’. Logica Universalis, 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’. American Journal of Islam and Society, 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’. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 36(2), pp.20-63.
  • (2018). ‘The Classical Correspondence Theory of Truth and the God of Islam’. Philosophy and Theology, 30(2), pp.273-294.
  • (2017). ‘A Realist Approach in Analytic Theology and the Islamic Tradition’. Philosophy and Theology, 29(1), pp.101-132.
     
  • ‘Expanding Logical Space; Making Room for Islamic Theological Contradictions’.
  • ‘Theological Incompleteness; Beyond the Contradictory One: Al-Taftāzānī’s Gödel-Inspired Solution’.
  • ‘Paraconsistent Islamic Theology’.
  • ‘Dialetheic Approaches to Doctrinal Contradictions’.
  • Guest editor for special issue ‘Exchanges between Analytic and Islamic South Asian Philosophies’, Asian Journal of Philosophy.
  • Organisational committee member of the 4th World Congress on Logic and Religion and guest editor of Concepts of God: Consistency, Inconsistency and Paraconsistency Issues.
  • Guest editor for special issue ‘Interactions between analytic and Islamic philosophy/theology’, The European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, (2022), Volume 18, No. 2.
  • Monograph in progress, Foundations of contemporary logic in Islamic philosophical theology, Routledge.
  • Monograph in progress, Islamic Contradictory Theology, SUNY Press.
  • In progress, ‘Double Trouble with Ibn Rushd: A Plurality of Truth and/or Logics’ in
    Contradiction and the Absolute
    , Graham Priest, and Behnam Zolghadr (eds), Routledge.
  • 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.