Muhammad U Faruque
Muhammad U. Faruque is the Inayat Malik Associate Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Environmental Studies and a former Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He earned his PhD (with distinction) from the University of California, Berkeley, and served as Exchange Scholar at Harvard University and as George Ames Postdoctoral Fellow at Fordham University. He was also educated at the University of London and Tehran University. In addition to his formal college education, he has traveled throughout the world to learn and explore, and studied with many scholars in South Asia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, North Africa, and Malaysia.
A prominent global philosopher who has lectured widely across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, his books and academic articles have been translated into numerous languages and have been recognized by important funding bodies across the United States, such as the Templeton Foundation and the US Department of Education. He gives public lectures on a wide range of topics such as the environmental crisis, spirituality, meditation, AI, Islamic psychology, and Islam and the West.
His first book Sculpting the Self (University of Michigan Press, 2021) received the prestigious World Book of the Year Award. The book addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of selfhood and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical literatures, including modern philosophy and neuroscience. He is the author of five books and over fifty academic articles, which have appeared (or are forthcoming) in numerous prestigious, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes such as Philosophy East and West, Philosophical Forum, Journal of Contemplative Studies, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge), Sophia, Journal of Sufi Studies (Brill), Religious Studies (Cambridge), and Ancient Philosophy.
While his past research has explored modern and premodern conceptions of selfhood and identity and their bearing on ethics, religion, and culture, his forthcoming book project entitled The Interconnected Universe aims to develop a new theory of the human and the more-than-human world based on a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary approach that draws on the environmental humanities, on one hand, and Sufism and Islamic Contemplative Studies, on the other. Alongside developing a theory of the “interconnected universe,” this study also argues that Sufi contemplative practices support and foster an active engagement toward the planet’s well-being and an ecologically viable way of life and vision through an “anthropocosmic” vision of the self.
He is also at work on a book on AI and the existential threats of information technology. He also just published an edited volume entitled From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (co-edited with M. Rustom and published by Routledge). In addition, he has a forthcoming book Why Read Mullā Ṣadrā Today? (Cambridge University Press, under contract).
Broadly speaking, his research interests range over Subjectivity, Religion and Climate Change, Islamic Psychology, Graeco-Arabica, Critical Theory, Cross-cultural Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Gender Hermeneutics, History and Philosophy of Science, Contemporary Islam, Qur'anic Exegesis, Islamic Philosophy (especially, post-classical philosophy), Indo-Iranica, Persian and Bengali literature, and Sufism.
He is also affiliated with the departments of Philosophy, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, and the Religious Studies Certificate program.
Webpage: https://muhammadfaruque.com/
A prominent global philosopher who has lectured widely across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, his books and academic articles have been translated into numerous languages and have been recognized by important funding bodies across the United States, such as the Templeton Foundation and the US Department of Education. He gives public lectures on a wide range of topics such as the environmental crisis, spirituality, meditation, AI, Islamic psychology, and Islam and the West.
His first book Sculpting the Self (University of Michigan Press, 2021) received the prestigious World Book of the Year Award. The book addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of selfhood and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical literatures, including modern philosophy and neuroscience. He is the author of five books and over fifty academic articles, which have appeared (or are forthcoming) in numerous prestigious, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes such as Philosophy East and West, Philosophical Forum, Journal of Contemplative Studies, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge), Sophia, Journal of Sufi Studies (Brill), Religious Studies (Cambridge), and Ancient Philosophy.
While his past research has explored modern and premodern conceptions of selfhood and identity and their bearing on ethics, religion, and culture, his forthcoming book project entitled The Interconnected Universe aims to develop a new theory of the human and the more-than-human world based on a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary approach that draws on the environmental humanities, on one hand, and Sufism and Islamic Contemplative Studies, on the other. Alongside developing a theory of the “interconnected universe,” this study also argues that Sufi contemplative practices support and foster an active engagement toward the planet’s well-being and an ecologically viable way of life and vision through an “anthropocosmic” vision of the self.
He is also at work on a book on AI and the existential threats of information technology. He also just published an edited volume entitled From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (co-edited with M. Rustom and published by Routledge). In addition, he has a forthcoming book Why Read Mullā Ṣadrā Today? (Cambridge University Press, under contract).
Broadly speaking, his research interests range over Subjectivity, Religion and Climate Change, Islamic Psychology, Graeco-Arabica, Critical Theory, Cross-cultural Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Gender Hermeneutics, History and Philosophy of Science, Contemporary Islam, Qur'anic Exegesis, Islamic Philosophy (especially, post-classical philosophy), Indo-Iranica, Persian and Bengali literature, and Sufism.
He is also affiliated with the departments of Philosophy, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, and the Religious Studies Certificate program.
Webpage: https://muhammadfaruque.com/
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Books by Muhammad U Faruque
From the publisher:
“Sculpting the Self is a masterpiece. It is among the finest explorations of selfhood and subjectivity in contemporary philosophical literature. Muhammad Faruque’s approach is breathtakingly erudite, analytically precise, and extraordinarily synoptic. He draws effectively on a wide range of Western philosophical literature-classical, modern, and contemporary; on classical and recent Indian philosophy; on contemporary cognitive science; and especially, and with great nuance, on a great swath of the Islamic tradition from the medieval period through the work of Muhammad Iqbal. Each of these many threads is spun with great care. But most impressive is the skill with which they are woven into a profoundly illuminating tapestry. Sculpting the Self is not only a superb exploration of selfhood, but a master class in the practice of cross-cultural philosophy.”
—Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Smith College and Visiting Professor of Buddhist Philosophy, Harvard Divinity School
"Philosophically dense but yet eminently accessible, this book is a landmark publication in the fields of Islamic Studies and the study of religion more broadly."
—New Books Network in Religious Studies
“Sculpting the Self is a rare but essential treat that presents a creative analysis of major thinkers in Islam, and demonstrates how one might fruitfully read their work to move towards a truly global study of selfhood and philosophy.”
—Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter
“Sculpting the Self is an impressive book. Situated at the crossroads between Western and Islamic philosophies of the self, both modern and non-modern, it offers a new way forward: a ‘multidimensional’ model that is richer, more expansive, and more inclusive than most theories available today. Smart, deeply informed, and engaging, Faruque’s book will be a cornerstone for future thinking about the elusive entity we call the self.”
—James I. Porter, Irving Stone Professor of Literature, Departments of Rhetoric and Classics, UC Berkeley
“In Sculpting the Self we are guided along the maze of the concept of the self in Islamic philosophy by one of the most promising, young global philosophers writing today. Muhammad Faruque’s breadth in this work is extraordinary, bringing many key pre-modern and modern Muslim philosophers from Iran and India into conversation with various currents in philosophy, consciousness studies, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience. The result is nothing less than a sophisticated, first of its kind account of Islamic philosophical conceptions of selfhood, personhood, and identity.”
—Mohammed Rustom, author of Inrushes of the Heart: The Sufi Philosophy of 'Ayn al-Qudat
“Faruque has delivered a tour de force study of selfhood across time and tradition. His expertise in Islamic thought, together with his facility with a wide range of sources and approaches, succeeds in bringing the self’s full spectrum into view. The ambition of his project is as rare as it is refreshing.”
—Charles M. Stang, Professor of Early Christian Thought and Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School
“Faruque’s book is a welcome attempt to engage the various strands of Islamic philosophical psychology with contemporary work on subjectivity and selfhood in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The approach is novel and should initiate a vigorous discussion concerning the contemporary relevance of the history of Islamic thought.”
—Jari Kaukua, University of Jyväskylä
“The variety of voices and sources, both Western and non-Western, bring to life the model of a multidimensional self especially in contrast to the reductionist models that Faruque critiques.”
—Sayeh Meisami, University of Dayton
“. . . a great survey on the study of self. Faruque develops a unique perspective in combining neuroscience and philosophy and offers a great conversation between Western, Islamic, and Eastern philosophers.”
—Ramazan Kilinc, University of Nebraska at Omaha
"This cross-cultural analysis of human identity or the self provides a brilliant and wide-spanning philosophical understanding of the current epistemological challenges in understanding selfhood. Faruque has amassed an extraordinary amount of source material in several European and Islamic languages by bringing the Islamic tradition into dialogue with the metaphysics of the East and West, including modern disciplines such as cognitive science, consciousness studies, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience—that offer a remarkable study of selfhood... This work will be important for mental health professionals seeking to better understand human identity as it is informed by the diverse cultures and their knowledge systems."
—The Humanistic Psychologist
"Explaining theories and conceptions of selfhood and subjectivity across Western, Islamic and Indian sources is no easy task; it is even more difficult to do so clearly, cogently and in a manner comprehensible to non-experts. ...Yet this is what Muhammad Faruque does in Sculpting the Self."
—Islam and Christian-Musim Relations
"In the perusal of contemporary philosophical literature, one rarely comes upon a work that engages in an analytic penetration of a philosophical topic with such erudition and cosmopolitanism. Faruque’s study draws on primary philosophical work from English, German, French, ancient Greek, Persian, Arabic, Urdu sources and then supplements them with the latest and most cutting-edge scientific and historical studies; this is all done in an elegant and inclusive manner. Indeed, this study is not only a comprehensive philosophical treatment of selfhood, but it is also a blueprint for an exemplary philosophical analysis which is not cramped by scholarly parochialism endemic to the run-of-the-mill academic essays."
—Comparative Philosophy
The volume features contributions from leading scholars, including William Chittick, Sachiko Murata, Sherman Jackson, Jonathan A.C. Brown, Gholamreza Aavani, John Walbridge, Asma Afsaruddin, and many others.
Much of modern life as we know it is characterized by the ubiquitous presence of carbon footprints, an ideology of endless growth, and a fragmented sense of reality. In light of increasing environmental crises, however, we are now forced to reimagine what it means to be modern. As Faruque argues, it is precisely here that Sufi philosophy and practice foster a holistic view of the universe rooted in an “anthropocosmic” vision of the self, which emphasizes organismic unity and cosmic harmony. The Interconnected Universe thus provides a comprehensive reorientation of how we understand the climate crisis, and shows us how that can translate into meaningful ecological living.
PhD Dissertation by Muhammad U Faruque