Faculty

Contact Info Department of Religion Tufts University Eaton Hall Room 313 Medford, MA 02155 Tel: 617-627-2362 Email Professor Download CV (pdf)

Ken Garden
Assistant Professor

Ken Garden received his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in the fall of 2005. His current research centers on the medieval Muslim religious scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious and controversies it inspired in Muslim Spain and Iran. This research touches on themes of revival and reform in Islam, Sufism and Islamic Philosophy, and the Religious History of North Africa and Muslim Spain. His studies have taken him to Germany, Spain, Egypt, where he spent a year at the American University in Cairo, and Morocco, where he lived for two years in Fez and Rabat. Prior to coming to Tufts, Professor Garden was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, a lecturer at Yale, and a visiting assistant professor at Amherst College.

Education
Ph.D. University of Chicago
B.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Book Project
Al-Ghazālī’s Rhetoric of Revival: A study of the agenda, rhetoric, and reception of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s seminal work, The Revival of the Religious Sciences.

Research Interests

• Life and Thought of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
• Religious Thought of al-Andalus and the Maghrib
• Sufism
• Classical and Contemporary Islamic Revival, Renewal, and Reform

Courses

• Abu Hamid al-Ghazali: a Window on Islamic Religious Sciences
• Revival and Reform in Islam
• Muhammad and the Qur’an
• Sufism
• Introduction to Islam
• Islam and Modernity
• Islam: Scripture, Authority, and Canon

Papers Presented

• "Towards a New Narrative of the Life and Thought of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī," presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religions.
• "Al-Ghazālī the Reviver," Working Group on Islamic Philosophy, Yale University, 2007.
• "The Controversy Over al-Ghazālī's Return to Teaching in Nishapur--499/1106-503-1109," presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association.
• "Al-Ghazali the Sufi or al-Ghazali the Reviver?" 2005-06 Qatar Lecture, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University.
•  "Al-Ghazālī’s Four-Part Structure and the Underlying Logic of the Revival of the Religious Sciences," presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religions.
• "Critiques of al-Ghazālī in the Mashriq and the Maghrib," presented at the University of Pennsylvania conference “`Ilm and Imama: Knowledge and Politics in Classical Islam," 2003.
• "The Relation between Saints and Political Authorities in the Islamic West in the 12th Century," presented at the 1999 annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association
• "The Use of the Fatwā as a Source for Later Andalusian Social History," presented at the 33rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, 1998.

Fellowships

• Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 2005-06.
• Stuart Tave Fellowship for Course Design, University of Chicago, fall 2002-03.
• American Institute for Maghrib Studies for study in Morocco, 2001-02.
• Fulbright IIE for study in Morocco, 2000-01.
• Program for Cultural Cooperation: Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture/United States Universities, funding for research in Spain, fall 1998.
• US Department of Education, Center for Arabic Studies Abroad year-long fellowship, 1995-96.
• Century Fellowship for Graduate Study at the University of Chicago, 1994-1999.
• Scholarships for the University of Chicago’s Summer Arabic Program, 1993, 1994.