Description
Explore Islam’s traditional intellectual legacy and its contemporary relevance alongside the vision behind the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology—a groundbreaking, open-access platform committed to high-level, peer-reviewed scholarship across global theological traditions.
Join Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, alongside Dr Alexander Wain, historian of Islam in Southeast Asia, and Dr Brendan Wolfe, principal editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, for a thought-provoking conversation on Islamic tradition, theology, and the evolving landscape of contemporary scholarship.
For much of its history, Islam has been characterised by intellectual curiosity, plurality, and malleability. Finding expression within a broad range of theological, philosophical, and mystical traditions, today this creativity often seems hidden behind a deep-rooted conservativism.
The speakers will discuss how digital accessibility, intellectual rigour, and interfaith collaboration are shaping the future of theological inquiry, particularly within the Islamic tradition. This discussion promises an engaging conversation on the intersection of tradition, scholarship, and innovation with three leading voices in the field.
About the Speakers
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad is currently the Sheikh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, and Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College.
He has published and contributed to numerous academic works on Islam, including the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, with his best-known works being his translations from Imam Al-Ghazali’s Ihya (1995), a series of aphorisms (Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions), and his most recent book, Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe.
He is founder and Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, which has offered Diploma courses for British Dar Al-Ulum graduates and now has an accredited BA programme offered to graduate religious leaders who are confident, competent, and conversant with the issues of the age. He is a much sought-after speaker and contributes regularly to the media and is fluent in several languages. Hundreds of YouTube videos of his lectures and talks form an important source of knowledge for English-speaking Muslims worldwide.
His Paradigms of Leadership lecture series focuses on exemplary figures in Islamic history and has proved to be particularly popular. Shaykh Abdal Hakim was the main force behind the decade-long project to build the Cambridge Central Mosque, Europe’s first eco-mosque, which opened in April 2019 and has become an iconic standard for all places of worship in the country.
Dr Alexander Wain
Alexander Wain is both editor of the Islam section of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology and a lecturer in the Graduate School of the University of St Andrews. A specialist in the eastern Islamic world, his primary research interests lie in the history and literary traditions of the Malay Muslim world (modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, southern Philippines, and Singapore), with an ancillary focus on China’s hui-hui Muslim ethnic grouping.
His forthcoming monograph, The Islamization of the Malay World (Brill), explores the complex, multivalent commercial, intellectual, and cultural networks that, stretching across the Indian Ocean towards China, allowed Muslims of Arab, Persian, Indian, and Chinese origin to initiate a religious revolution that continues to define the Malay and Javanese worlds today.
His ongoing research explores the history of Islamic thought (broadly conceived) within the Malay world, from the 15th century down to the present. From 2015 to 2021, Dr Wain lived in Kuala Lumpur, where he worked as a Research Fellow at IAIS Malaysia. Previously, he has taught at Liverpool John Moores University (2007-2010) and the University of Edinburgh (2023-2024).
Dr Brendan Wolfe
Brendan Wolfe is the Principal Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, an international research project building a free, online encyclopaedia covering theology from an internal perspective. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Text & Image project, which investigates the cognitive effects of text on religious visual art and sponsors the Art as Revelation collaboration between artists and theologians. Dr Wolfe’s research into the history of Christianity in Fife has led to the Sacred Landscape Project, examining the local coasts as a landscape of faith, and improvements to the St Mary’s College archive at the University of St Andrews. Another significant element of his scholarship has been fostering and strengthening academic engagement with J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and others in their circle, known as the Inklings. He has co-edited three collections of essays on the Inklings and is a co-founder of the Journal of Inklings Studies. He came to St Andrew’s in 2014, having previously studied and taught at Oxford from 2004 to 2009 and 2011 to 2014, and researched and taught in Berlin from 2009 to 2011.
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