Professor Yahya Michot [Hartford Seminary, USA]

Professor Yahya M. Michot is one of the world’s leading experts on Ibn Taymiyyah. He was director of the Centre for Arabic Philosophy at University of Louvain in Belgium where he has delivered courses in Arabic, History of Arabic Philosophy, History of Muslim Peoples and Institutions of Islam, and Commentary on Arabic Philosophical Texts. His main field of research is the History of Muslim Thought with special reference to Avicenna (Ibn Sina), his predecessors and his impact on Sunni thought and Ibn Taymiyyah.

Professors Michot’s interests also encompass the history of Muslim thought during the Mamlūk and Ilkhān periods, as well as modern Islamic movements. He has published numerous books and articles about Islamic classical thought, Muslim societies, including several volumes on Ibn Sina and Ibn Taymiyyah. Some of these articles include “La destine´e de l’homme selon Avicenne” (1986), “IBN SINA. Lettre au vizir Abu Sa’d” (Arabic edition & translation, 2000), “AVICENNE. Re´futation de l’astrologie” (Arabic edition & translation, 2006) “Ibn Taymiyya: Muslims under non-Muslim Rule” (2006), “Ahmad al-Aqhisari: Against Smoking. An Ottoman Manifesto” (Arabic edition & translation, 2010), “Musulmans en Europe” (2002), and the chapter “Revelation” in the “Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology” (2008). His recent book is “Ibn Taymiyya: Against Extremisms. A Reader”.

He has served as a consultant to various universities, and has been a Fellow at the Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and a Lecturer in the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University. He serves as member of various international scholarly societies, and is founder and director of the collection ‘Sagesses Musulmanes’. Professor Michot held the position of president of the Conseil Supérieur des Musulmans de Belgique between 1995 and 1998. Currently is Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Macdonald Center, Hartford Seminary, USA.

For a full list please visit: www.hartsem.edu/faculty/yahya-michot

Jon Hoover [University of Nottingham,UK]

Professor Jon Hoover is a leading expert on Ibn Taymiyyah. He majored Theological Studies from the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Indiana, followed by PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Birmingham. He has taught Islamic Studies at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut and currently teaching, researching and supervising Islamic Studies at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Nottingham,UK. His expertise and areas of special interest include Islamic intellectual history, medieval Islamic theology and philosophy, the thought of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, and Christian-Muslim relations.

Some of publications, articles and journals include: Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism (2007). Ibn Taymiyya. Oxford Bibliographies Online.(2012) Ḥanbalī Theology Oxford Handbooks Online. (2014) Christian-Muslim relations: a bibliographical history. (2012)

For a full list please visit: www.nottingham.ac.uk/theology/people/jon.hoover

Dr Yossef Rapoport [University of London, UK]

Dr Yossef Rapoport is Senior Lecturer in Islamic History at School of History, Queen Mary, University of London. He was trained in the universities of Tel Aviv (Israel), Princeton (USA) and Oxford, before joining Queen Mary in 2008. A historian of the social, cultural and legal aspects of life in the Islamic, Arabic-speaking Middle East in its Middle Ages, from about 1000 to 1500 AD.

His work mostly relates to the history of the Islamic Middle East under the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties, and his main focus is the history of everyday life and the relatively unexplored history of women, slaves and peasants. He is also interested in the history of Islamic medieval maps, and is involved in the Leverhulme-funded project Cartography between Europe and the Islamic World, 1100-1600 with Alfred Hiatt and Jerry Brotton.

Some selected publications on Ibn Taymiyya include:

“Ibn Taymiyya on Divorce Oaths”, in A. Levanoni and M. Winter (eds.), The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society (link is external) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 191-217.

Co-editor, With Shahab Ahmad , Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Proceedings of a conference held at Princeton University, 8-10 April 2005 (link is external) (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010); with Shahab Ahmed, “Introduction”, 3-20.

“Ibn Taymiyya’s radical legal thought: Rationalism, pluralism and the primacy of intention”, in Y. Rapoport and S. Ahmad (eds.), Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Proceedings of a conference held at Princeton University, 8-10 April 2005 (link is external) (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 191-226.

For a full list please visit: www.history.qmul.ac.uk/staff/profile/4561-dr-yossef-rapoport