People
Ken Garden
Associate Professor
Education:
Ph.D. University of Chicago
B.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Research Interests:
- Life and Thought of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
- Religious Thought of al-Andalus and the Maghrib
- Sufism
- Contemporary Muslim religious discourse,
especially in Egypt (see website:
Translating Muslim Voices)
Background:
Ken Garden received his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and
Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2005. He is the
author of The First Islamic Reviver: Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī and
his Revival of the Religious Sciences (Oxford: 2014). His
current research centers the development of Sufism in North Africa
and Muslim Spain in the 12th and 13th centuries. He also has a
website that presents and analyzes examples of religious discourse
from different currents in contemporary Egyptian Islam. His studies
have taken him to Germany, Spain, Egypt, where he spent a year at
the American University in Cairo in 1995-96 and the fall semester of
2011, and Morocco, where he lived for two years in Fez and Rabat
from 2000-2002, and more recently the summer of 2010.
Book:
The First Islamic Reviver:
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and his Revival of the Religious Sciences
Courses Taught:
- Muhammad and the Qur'an
- Sufism
- Introduction to Islam
- Islam and Modernity
- Secularism
- Islam: Scripture, Authority, and Canon
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali: a Window on Islamic
Religious Sciences
- Revival and Reform in Islam
Selected Publications:
- "Coming Down from the Mountaintop: Al-Ghazālī's
Autobiographies in Context," Muslim World Special
Issue Celebrating the 900th Anniversary of al-Ghazālī
, 101:4 (October, 2011), pp. 581-596.
- "Al-Māzarī al-Dhakī: Al-Ghazālī's Maghribi
Adversary in Nishapur," Journal of Islamic Studies,
21:1 (2010), pp. 89-107.
- "From Courtier to Religious Scholar: The
riḥla and
self-reinvention of Abū Bakr Ibn al-'Arabī."
Forthcoming, Journal of the American Oriental
Society.
- "The Revival of the Religious Sciences in the
Twenty-First Century: Su'ād al-Hakīm's Adaptation
al-Ghazālī's Revival," forthcoming from Brill in
conference proceedings of "al-Ghazālī and his
Influence: A Workshop on the Occasion of the 900th
Anniversary of his Death in 1111," Yale University,
December 9-10, 2011.
- "Revisiting al-Ghazālī's Crisis through his Scale
for Action (Mīzān al-'amal)," forthcoming from Brill
in conference proceedings of "Islam and Rationality:
the Impact of al-Ghazālī—an International and
Interdisciplinary Conference at Ohio State
University," November 10-12, 2011.
Selected Presentations:
- "Duncan Macdonald's Pioneering Study of al-Ghazālī:
Paths Not Taken," A Celebration of the 150th
Anniversary of the Birth of Duncan Black Macdonald,
Hartford Theological Seminary, June 2, 2013.
Watch the video >
- "Aims and Authorizing Strategies of Muhammad �Abdūh's
al-Risāla fī al-Tawhid," "Seeds of Revolution
Symposium," Tufts University, April 8, 2011.
- "Al-Ghazali in Contemporary Lebanon: Su'ād al-Ḥakīm's
Project of Rereading His Revival," "al-Ghazālī and
his Influence: A Workshop on the Occasion of the
900th Anniversary of his Death in 1111," Yale
University, December 9-10, 2011.
- "Al-Ghazālī's Ethics Before and After the
Crisis," "Islam and Rationality: the Impact of al-Ghazālī—an
International and Interdisciplinary Conference,"
Ohio State University, November 10-12, 2011.
- "Law as Liferaft: the rihla of Abū Bakr Ibn al-'Arabī,"
2010 annual meeting of the Middle Eastern Studies
Association, San Diego, November 18-21.
- "Revival through Reclassification: Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī's
Revival of the Religious Sciences," Cambridge
Symposium on Middle Eastern Studies: 'Knowledge and
Language in Middle Eastern Studies," Cambridge
University October 16-18, 2009.
- "Invocation of the Mujaddid Hadith in Islamic
Thought," 2009.
- Meeting of the American Oriental
Society, Albuquerque, March 13-16, 2009.
Awards:
- Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service
fellowship, academic year 2013-14.
- Center for Arabic Studies Abroad III Fellowship
in Cairo, Egypt, fall 2011.
- Center for the Humanities at Tufts faculty
fellowship academic year 2010-2011.
- Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University,
2005-06.
- 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.
- Center for Arabic Studies Abroad year-long
fellowship, 1995-96.
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