INVITED LECTURES AND TALKS

“Rumi, Ethical Education, and Sufi Theories of Personality.” Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany, October 13, 2024.

“What It Means to be Human in a Post-Enlightenment World: An Islamic Philosophical Perspective.” The Institute for Epistemological Studies – Europe (IESE) in partnership with Bursa Uludağ University, Bursa, Türkiye, May 04, 2024.

“Opening Pandora’s Box: AI, ChatGPT, and the Quest for Superintelligence.” University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, April 16, 2024.

“Climate Change, Anthropocentrism, and the Fate of Human Civilization.” Special Lecture, A&F Office of Sustainability, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, April 03, 2024.

“The Burnout Society: Healing Fragmentation through Islamic Spirituality.” Habib University, Karachi, Pakistan, November 25, 2023.

“Immortality through AI?: Transhumanism, Human Nature, and the Quest for Spiritual Machines.” The Comparison Project Lecture Series. Department of Philosophy & Religion, Drake University, Des Moines, November 15, 2023.

“The Decline of Philosophy and the Rise of Shallow Thinking: The Challenges of the Islamic World.” Tradisi: The Centre for Advanced Irfan Studies, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 06, 2023 [Online Lecture].

“Islamic Psychology and Theories of Personality.” Humanity, Sufi Thought and Healing Lecture Series. Institute of Sufi Studies, Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Türkiye, October 03, 2023.

“Finding Our Place on a Changing Planet: An Introduction to the Theories and Methods of the Environmental Humanities.” Department of Environmental Studies, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, September 18, 2023.

“The Idea of ‘Thinking’ in a Techno-Scientific World: A Cross-cultural Perspective.” The Geophilosophies Project. The University of Michigan, Michigan, Sept. 8, 2023.

“A Response to the Upaniṣadic Self.” Hinduism for Muslim Audiences by Ankur Barua. University of Cambridge and Project Noon, Zoom Lecture, August 12, 2023.

“Opening Pandora’s Box: AI, ChatGPT, and the Mystery of Consciousness.” Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, Florida, April 03, 2023.

“Religious Diversity: A Philosophical Approach.” Khan Endowment Lecture. Department of Religious Studies, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, March 15, 2023.

“All Minds, All the Time: The Universality of Minds in the Philosophy of Shāh Walī Allāh.” Karl H. Potter Memorial Lecture Series in Philosophy. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, March 01, 2023.

“Charles Taylor and the Invention of Modern Inwardness: A Non-Western Response.” College of Humanities, Carleton University, Ottawa, January 26, 2023.

“What is Nature? Orphic, Promethean, and Native American Views.” Department of Environmental Studies, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, November 30, 2022.

“Modes of Selfhood in Islam: A Panel on Muhammad Faruque’s Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing.” Book Panel Respondent, the Annual Meeting of The American Academy of Religion, Denver, November 20, 2022.

“Interventions and Intersections.” Panel: Constructive Muslim Thought and Engaged Scholarship, the Annual Meeting of The American Academy of Religion, Denver, November 20, 2022.

“Islamic Moral Theology and the Future.” George Mason University, Virginia, October 21, 2022.

Inaugural Bangabandhu Memorial Lecture: “Decolonizing the Muslim Mind: Islam and the Path to Intellectual Emancipation.” Bangabandhu Research Centre for Islam and Interreligious Dialogue, Chittagong, May 11, 2022.

“Islam, Psychology, and Selfhood.” A Conference on Islamic Psychology, Islamic Dawah Center, Texas, Feb. 27, 2022.

“The Self and Human Ontology.” The George Washington University and Alkaram Institute, Washington DC, Dec. 11, 2021.

“Islamic Philosophy: An Introduction.” The George Washington University and Alkaram Institute, Washington DC, Nov. 13, 2021.

“Decolonizing the Muslim Mind: Islam, Spirituality, and Human Flourishing.” Exeter-Habib Seminars on Islam after Colonialism. University of Exeter, Exeter, Nov. 12, 2021.

“Qur’anic Studies in the Euro-American Academy.” Panel Discussant. 50th Annual Conference on “Approaches to Qur’anic Studies in the Western Academy.” The North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies, University of Oregon, Nov. 12, 2021.

“Shared ideas and Worlds: Mystical Philosophy in the Middle Ages as a Case Study for Coexistence.” Panelist. Festival of Faiths, Cincinnati. Aug. 26, 2021.

“Sufism: Islam’s Mystical Tradition.” Department of Philosophy, UC Clermont College, Batavia, April 08, 2021.

“Who am I? The Labyrinth of Selfhood in the Islamic Tradition.” The College of Letters, Wesleyan University, Connecticut, February 24, 2021.

“Transcending the Ordinary Self: Mullā Ṣadrā on the Ethics of Human Flourishing.” Islamic Philosophy Conversation Group Workshop. Bard College, December 18, 2020.

“Islam and the Care of the Earth: A Response to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’.” Interreligious Perspectives on Laudato Si’: A Fifth Anniversary Celebration of Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Care of the Earth. Georgetown University, Georgetown, October 30, 2020.

“What is Life in the Islamic Tradition?” The Concept of Life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. University Erlangen–Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany, September 25, 2020.

“Selfhood and Being Human in Islamic Mystical Literature.” Department of Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, August 13, 2020.

“Care for Our Common Home: Jews, Christians, and Muslims Confront Climate Change.” Annual Spring McGinley Lecture by Patrick J. Ryan. Panel Respondent. Fordham University, New York, March 31, 2020.

“The Crisis of Modern Subjectivity: Rethinking Iqbal, Selfhood, and the Islamic Tradition.” Religious Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA, Jan. 24, 2020.

“Transcending the Ordinary Self: Self-Cultivation and Human Flourishing in Islamic Philosophy.” The American Philosophical Association. San Francisco, April 9, 2020.

“Sufism, Science, and Philosophy in Islamicate History: Challenging the Myth of Islamic Decline in the Early Modern Persianate World.” Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, Dec. 12, 2019.

“Attending to Oneself: Muhammad Iqbal and Indian Philosophy.” Mind, World and Attention: Themes from Indian and Buddhist Philosophical Theory.  New York University, New York, April 26, 2019.

“Gollum and I: The Lord of the Rings, Islamic Mystical Literature, and the Practice of Being an Authentic Self.” Center for the Middle East Studies, Fordham University, New York, Mar. 11, 2019.

“Conversations in Islamic Ethics: A Discussion with Cyrus Ali Zargar about His New Book ‘The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism.’” The Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics, Louisville, Jan. 5, 2019.

“The Problem of Selfhood in Islamic Mystical Thought.” Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, Cambridge, November 01, 2017.

“Finding One’s True Self: Self-Cultivation and Human Flourishing in Islamic and Neoplatonic Thought.” Comparative Studies Doctoral Colloquium 2017-2018. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, Cambridge, October 23, 2017.

“A Phenomenological Overview of Islamic Art.” Lecture Delivered in a Workshop Organized for K-12 Teachers. Stanford Live, Stanford University, Palo Alto, US. Sept. 26, 2016.

“Sufism versus Shariah? Shāh Walī Allāh on God, Existence, and the Nature of Reality.” Junior Scholars Lunch Papers. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies. University of California, Berkeley. Feb. 16, 2016.

“Islamic Identity in the West.” Panel Speaker. Delta Phi Epsilon, University of California, Berkeley Chapter. University of California, Berkeley, April 27, 2015.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

“Tawḥīd, Modern Thinking, and the Fragmented Self: Some Reflections” Islamic Conference on Uniting Diverse Voices. ISTAC-IIUM, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan 17-18, 2024.

“Ibn ʿArabī and the Problem of Selfhood.” Muhyiddin Ibn ʻArabi: His Legacy and its Pertinence in the Contemporary World. The Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran, Iran, December 11-12, 2023.

“Hume on Trial: Can Evil and Suffering be Justified?” From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, June 28-30, 2022.

“Co-existence with Nature?: The Eco-philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā.” Panel: Sufism, the Qur’an, and the Natural Environment, the Annual Meeting of The American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX, November 20-23, 2021.

“Is the Self a Modern Invention?” The American Philosophical Association. New York, January 9, 2021.

“A Philosophy of Self in Islam, or an Islamic Philosophy of Self? What is the Difference and Who Cares?” The Annual Meeting of The American Academy of Religion, San Diego, California, November 23–26, 2019.

“Sufism and Philosophy in the Mughal-Safavid Era: Consciousness and First-Person Subjectivity in Mullā Ṣadrā and Shāh Walī Allāh.” Sufism and Philosophy: Historical Interactions and Crosspollinations. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, April 26-27, 2019.

“Finding one’s Authentic Self in a Secular Age: Ethics, Self-Knowledge, and Human Flourishing.” Philosophy of Religion Panel 1: Self-Deception, Authentic Selfhood, and Communal Recognition, The American Academy of Religion, Arizona State University, Arizona, March 2-3, 2019.

“The View from the ‘I:’ Self-Knowledge and First-Person Subjectivity in Suhrawardī and Mullā Ṣadrā.” The American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), Vancouver, April 17-20, 2019.

“What is it like to be a Self? Subjectivity and Selfhood from Mullā Ṣadrā to Muḥammad Iqbāl.” Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität-UC Berkeley Konferenz 2018, Munich, Germany, Dec 13-15, 2018.

“Sculpting the Self: Being Human through ‘Virtues’ and ‘Self-Cultivation’ in Islamic Philosophical Literature.” American Comparative Literature Association, Los Angeles, March 29-Apr 01, 2018.

“The Deconstruction of Self: Attention and Subjectivity in Islamic and Global Philosophy.” Virtues of Attention: Global Philosophical Perspectives.”  New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China, March 23-24, 2018.

“Between Mind and Reality: Mullā Ṣadrā on the Problem of Natural Universals.” The Annual Meeting, MESA (Middle East Studies Association), Washington, DC, Nov 18-21, 2017.

“Between the Centre and Periphery: Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvī, Modernity and the Problem of Selfhood.” The 32nd Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference, University of Chicago, Illinois, May 6-7, 2017.

“Beyond the Essence-Existence Distinction: Mullā Ṣadrā on the Problem of Natural Universals.” The American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), Seattle, April 12-15, 2017.

“Sufism and Philosophical Discourse: Shāh Walī Allāh on the Problem of Waḥdat al-Wujūd.” Scientific and Rationalist Traditions in Muslim India.  University of California, Berkeley, October 22, 2016.

“The Islamic Intellectual Heritage in the Contemporary World.” Moderator. Al-Mustafa International University (Tehran Branch). Tehran, January 1-14, 2014.