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 

I am working on a few projects at the moment, the most noteworthy is the Oxford Handbook of Shiʿi Islam (co-edited with Sajjad Rizvi) and an edited volume tentatively titled Monotheism in Islamic Thought. 

Moreover, I am working on two monographs. The first monograph offers an account of Avicennan philosophy in the post-classical period, where I study the writings and metaphysics of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī (d. 1497), a little-known but significant Shiʿi philosopher who wrote in defence of Avicenna against the kalām criticisms of Avicennan philosophy by the likes of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and later Ashʿri thinkers such as Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī. 

Second, I am working on a study on monotheism and paganism in seventh-century Mecca, picking up from Patricia Crone and Gerald Hawting. I plan to map out the cosmology of the Qurʾan in order to better understand the religious worldview of the mushrikūn or so-called pagans. I will argue that Meccan paganism was far from uniform, proffering evidence to suggest that at least one strand practiced soft monotheism, inflected with ancient Arabian and Jewish monotheistic tendencies from Late Antiquity.

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). 

Along with Professor Sajjad Rizvi (Exeter), Dr Bdaiwi is the Editor-in-Chief of Taḥqīq: Journal of Islamic Thought and History published with Brill (Taḥqīq). He is also the c0-editor of the Brill book series Islamic Thought and History (ITH). 
 

Teaching activities

I teach the following courses: 

• Modes of Knowing in Medieval Islamic Thought
• Introduction to Shiʿi Islam
• Classical Readings in Arabic 
• Academic Skills
• Introduction to Arabic Philosophy 
• The Metaphysics of Avicenna 
• Contemporary Islamic Thought 
• Islamic Ethics 
• Early Islam and the World of Late Antiquity 
• Medieval Philosophy 
• The Arabic Influences on Medieval Europe 

Activities