Research

My research ventures into an array of subjects and themes in Islamic studies but oftentimes revolves around the disciplines of intellectual and religious history, philosophy, theology, and oriental manuscripts in Islamicate societies. 

- Early Islamic Thought and Late Antiquity 
- Medieval Arabic Philosophy and Theology
- Intellectual and Religious History of Shiʿi Islam
- Arabic Codicology and Manuscript Studies
- Quranic Studies 

Curriculum vitae

Dr Ahab Bdaiwi studied at the Universities of London and Exeter, and received his PhD in Arabic and Islamic Intellectual History from the University of Exeter (2015). He spent three years as a lecturer in Islamic and Iranian intellectual history at the University of St Andrews (2013-2016). In January 2016 he was Visiting Scholar of Medieval Studies at the College of William and Mary. Since August 2016 he is Assistant Professor of Islamic Thought and History at Leiden University. He received the the Cook Crone Fellowship in Ancient and Medieval History in 2020-2021, spending a year Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. 

He is the founder of the Leiden University Shiʿi Studies Initiative (LUSSI) and Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History (LUITH) and co-founder of the Leiden University Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (LAMS). He is also the Editor in Chief of the Leiden University Arabic Humanities Blog and a member of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). He is a Senior Member in The Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS)

Teaching activities

I teach the following courses at Modes of Knowing in Medieval Islamic Thought, Introduction to Medieval Philosophy, Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, Classical Readings in Arabic, Academic Skills, Introduction to Arabic Philosophy, The Metaphysics of Avicenna, Contemporary Islamic Thought, and Early Islam and the World of Late Antiquity.

Activities