My research revolves around philosophy, intellectual history and Islamic studies, and broad subjects surrounding the humanities i.e., philosophy of religions and worldviews, religious studies, hermeneutics, and ethics.

More information about Arnold Mol

Research

My research and teaching revolves around Islamic thought, philosophy of religion, comparative worldviews, intellectual history, and ethics. 

• Islamic intellectual history, Islamic philosophy and theology, Māturīdīsm, Islamic exegetical history (tafsīr studies)
• Philosophy of religions and worldviews, philosophical and theological anthropology, moral philosophy, religion and human rights discourse
• Religious studies, beliefs and extremism, religion and terrorism studies

Supervisors: Prof. dr. A.F. de Jong en Dr. A. Bdaiwi

CV

Arnold (Yasin) Mol is Lecturer and Doctoral Researcher in Islam and Comparative Philosophy at Leiden University Institute for Philosophy and Leiden University Center for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR), Associate Fellow at Leiden University Center for the Islamic Thought and History (LUCITH), and Associate Editor of the Leiden Arabic Humanities Blog. He is Lecturer in Comparative Theology and Philosophy at the Islamic University of Applied Sciences Rotterdam (IUASR) and Coordinator of its Research Institute. He is also Researcher at the healthcare NGO Landelijk Steunpunt Extremisme (LSE, Dutch National Center for Extremism).

His doctoral research is on the concept of human nature i.e., theo-philosophical anthropology, in early Islamic thought with a special focus on the dialectical theology (Kalām) of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (333/944) and his school. Through this research he is formulating the specialized field of Kalāmic anthropology within the discipline of comparative world philosophies (see here). His research interests and teaching revolves around Islamic thought, philosophy of religion, comparative worldviews, intellectual history, and ethics.

He has multiple publications on the subjects of Islamic intellectual history, Islamic theology, tafsīr studies, Islamic ethics, human rights discourse, Islamic reformism and extremism, and religious studies (including Brill, Oxford University Press, Routledge, De Gruyter, ABC-Clio, Journal of Islamic Ethics, Al-Bayan Journal of Quran and Hadith Studies, Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies, Al-Burhan Journal of Quran and Sunnah Studies), and has provided and organized talks, consultations, and lectures at multiple universities, (non-)governmental organizations, international institutes and conferences (including Erasmus University, Osnabrück University, Freiburg University, Georgetown University, Oxford University, Vrije Universiteit, ISAR Istanbul, Oxford University etc.), and is a frequent public speaker in local and international media.

Teaching activities

I teach at the Institute for Philosophy in subjects surrounding Islamic thought, philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, and extremism, including the courses Islamic Thought: Past and Present, Comparative Philosophy II: Topics, Medieval Philosophy: An Introduction, Arabic Philosophy: An Introduction, Avicennian Metaphysics, and Extremism in a Global Context.

Publications

• ‘Cosmologies in Islamic Thought’ in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Islam and Science, Shoaib Malik (Ed.) (forthcoming). encyclopedia entry
• ‘Islamic Theo-philosophical Anthropology’ in Springer Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, Terence Lovat (Ed.) (forthcoming). book chapter
• ‘Abu Mansur al-Maturidi’ in Springer Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, Terence Lovat (Ed.) (forthcoming). book chapter
• ‘The Human Revealed: Kalāmic Anthropology in Al-Māturīdī’s Tāʾwīlāt al- Qurʾān’ in Special Edition: Islamic Theological Anthropology, Ed. Laura Hassan and Shoaib Malik (forthcoming). article in journal
• ‘Ḥanafīsm as Indigenous Philosophy: Islamic Rationalism before the Greek Encounter’, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, Ed. Josh Hayes (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming). book chapter
• ‘Human Rights’, in Routledge Handbook on Islamic Ethics, Ed. Mohammed Ghaly (New York: Routledge) (forthcoming). book chapter
• ‘Hermeneutical Aspects in Ḥāšiya and Supercommentary tradition’, in Gruyter Handbook of Qurʾānic Hermeneutics, Ed. George Tamer (Berlin: De Gruyter) (forthcoming). book chapter
• ‘Why Maturidism?’, Leiden Arabic Humanities Blog, 2022. blog
• ‘Islamic Human Rights Discourse and Hermeneutics of Continuity’, Journal of Islamic Ethics (JIE), Volume 3 (2019). article in journal
• ‘Divine respite in the Ottoman tafsīr tradition: Reconciling exegetical approaches to Q.11:117’ in Osmanli’da ilm-I Tefsir, Ed. T. Boyalik and H. Abaci (Istanbul: ISAR, 2019). book chapter
• ‘Modern and Classical Scientific Readings of the Qur’ān: A comparative study of Abdul Wadud (d. 2001) and al-Bayḍāwī (d. 1286)'s naturalistic exegesis’, Al-Burhān Journal of Qurʾān and Sunnah Studies, Volume 3 (2019). article in journal
• ‘Laylat al-Qadr as Sacred Time: Sacred Cosmology in Sunni Kalām and Tafsīr’ in Islamic Studies Today: Essays in Honor of Andrew Rippin, Ed. Majid Daneshgar and Walid Saleh (Leiden: Brill, 2017). book chapter
• ‘Rise of Islamism, Extremism, and Islamic Counter Responses’, in Great Events in Religion: An Encyclopedia of Pivotal Events in Religious History, Ed. Florin Curta and Andrew Holt (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2016). encyclopedia entry
• ‘Origins of Jihad’, in Great Events in Religion: An Encyclopedia of Pivotal Events in Religious History, Ed. Florin Curta and Andrew Holt (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2016). encyclopedia entry
• ‘Ashura in the Malay Indonesian World The Ten Days of Muharram in Sumatra as Depicted by 19th Dutch Scholars’, Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies, Volume VIII, No. 4 (2015). article in journal
• ‘The denial of supernatural sorcery in classical and modern Sunni tafsir of surah al-Falaq: A reflection on underlying constructions’, Al-Bayan journal of Quran and Hadith studies, Volume 11, (June 2013). article in journal

Publications